AMERICAN  CHARACTER 


GAM AL)  EL  BRADFORD.  JR 


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TYPES 


AMERICAN  CHARACTER 


BY 

GAMALIEL   BRADFORD,  JR. 


Nefo  H orfc 
MACMILLAN   AND   COMPANY 

AND    LONDON 
I895 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1895, 
BY  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE. 

IT  is  not  pretended  that  the  sketches 
of  character  contained  in  this  little 
volume  present  more  than  a  few  phases 
of  American  life,  and  those  not  the 
most  prominent.  That  life,  so  new  in 
its  conditions,  so  varied  and  rich  and 
full  of  interest,  offers  an  inexhaustible 
field  of  study  to  the  critical  observer, 
and  anything  like  an  adequate  presen 
tation  of  it  would  require  a  wider 
acquaintance  with  men  and  things  than 
I  can  ever  hope  to  lay  claim  to.  I 
have  simply  studied  a  type  here  and 
there  as  they  came  within  my  reach. 

228459 


vl  PREFACE. 

The  American  Pessimist  and  The 
American  Epicurean  are  certainly  not 
to  be  met  with  every  day.  The  Ameri 
can  Idealist  is  perhaps  somewhat  local, 
at  least  as  I  have  sketched  him.  The 
American  Man  of  Letters  deals  rather 
with  the  conditions  of  a  literary  life 
than  with  a  literary  man.  The  Ameri 
can  Philanthropist  alone  is  a  type  at 
once  widely  represented  and  distinctly 
American. 

In  treating  these  subjects  I  have 
unavoidably  been  brought  in  contact 
with  the  most  far-reaching  philosophi 
cal  problems.  Whether  it  is  possible 
to  deduce  consistent  opinions  in  regard 
to  these  problems  from  anything  I  have 
said,  I  do  not  know ;  but  if  the  reader 
succeeds  in  accomplishing  this,  he  will 
do  more  than  I  can  do  myself.  My 


PREFACE.  Vll 

wish  is  rather  to  suggest  and  stimulate 
than  to  conclude  :  in  the  present  state 
of  science  and  philosophy  it  seems  to 
me  the  more  useful  function. 

I  am  afraid  that  some  of  the  essays 
breathe  a  spirit  of  gloom  and  melan 
choly.  This  I  am  sorry  for  ;  for  I  have 
come  to  feel  that  the  two  things  most 
desirable  and  most  to  be  cultivated  in 
this  world  are  love  and  joy,  and  I  be 
lieve  that  it  is  possible  to  cultivate  these 
things  far  more  than  we  now  do. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I.     THE  AMERICAN  PESSIMIST      .     .  i 

II.    THE  AMERICAN  IDEALIST  ...  22 

III.  THE  AMERICAN  EPICUREAN    .     .  53 

IV.  THE  AMERICAN  PHILANTHROPIST  87 
V.    THE  AMERICAN  MAN  OF  LETTERS  118 

VI.    THE  AMERICAN  OUT  OF  DOORS   .  153 

VII.    THE  SCHOLAR 185 


Of  the  Essays  contained  in  this  volume,  three, 
"  The  American  Pessimist,"  "  The  American  Ideal 
ist,"  and  "  The  American  Out  of  Doors,"  have 
appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and  are  re 
printed  with  the  permission  of  Messrs.  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.  The  others  are  now  printed  for 
the  first  time. 


TYPES   OF 
AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 


THE   AMERICAN   PESSIMIST. 

PESSIMISM  is  a  philosophy  greatly 
in  repute  just  now.  Schopenhauer 
and  Hartmann  are  in  the  mouths  of 
many  people  who  have  not  read  their 
works  at  all,  and  of  some  who  have 
read  them  with  very  little  understand 
ing.  Many  people  who  call  themselves 
pessimists,  however,  hardly  go  the  full 
length,  or  are  conscious  what  they  are 
proclaiming.  To  believe  deliberately 
that  the  whole  universe  exists  for  noth 
ing  but  evil,  misery,  and  suffering ;  that 
there  is  a  power,  or  an  unconscious 
B  i 


2         TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

force,  which  finds  a  pleasure,  or  follows 
a  natural  tendency,  in  the  mere  causing 
of  destruction,  is  to  believe  something 
very  contrary  to  the  natural  inclinations 
of  humanity.  For  this  is  more,  far 
more,  than  simple  materialism;  more 
than  the  mere  belief  that  nature  is  a 
vast,  inexorable  machine,  indifferent 
to  the  welfare  of  the  sentient  world. 
Materialism  is  consistent  with  a  philoso 
phy  of  great  calmness  and  resignation, 
if  not  of  joy.  But  to  be  a  pessimist 
philosophically  is  to  feel  one's  self  in 
fierce  and  deadly  antagonism  with  the 
universe,  to  hate  with  redoubled  hatred 
all  that  is  manifestly  pernicious,  and  to 
see  in  all  that  is  apparently  alluring 
nothing  but  the  hollow  magic  of  a 
snare. 

Nor  is  it  easy  to  think  that  pessimism 
has  ever  been  a  prevalent  system  of 
philosophy,  or  indeed,  until  to-day,  an 


THE   AMERICAN   PESSIMIST.  3 

elaborated  system  of  philosophy  at  all, 
at  least  among  Western  peoples,  and 
outside  of  some  vast  and  shadowy 
dream-vision  of  Asia.  A  theory  so 
enervating  could  not  have  flourished 
among  the  pushing  and  practical  races 
of  Europe  :  it  is  too  inconsistent  with 
all  action,  too  blighting  to  force  and 
vitality  of  will.  But  pessimism  as  a 
mood,  not  as  a  system,  is  as  old  as 
the  world,  and  as  lasting  as  the  think 
ing  animal  itself.  ^We  are  all  optimists 
and  pessimists  by  turns.  We  all  have 
our  after-dinner  dreams,  when  life  is 
suffused  with  a  glow  of  rose.  We  all 
have  our  moments  of  dejection  and 
despair,  caused  perhaps  at  times  by 
some  great  grief,  but  full  as  often  the 
result  of  a  little  over-fatigue,  a  jarring 
of  the  nerves,  an  indigestion,  and  we 
become  temporarily  as  black  pessi 
mists  as  LeopardiTj 


4         TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Yes,  it  is  coeval  with  the  birth  of 
thought  itself,  the  wild  and  sobbing 
shriek  of  overburdened  grief,  the  cold 
sigh  of  indifference  and  ennui.  We 
hear  it  in  Job  with  a  burst  of  passion: 

lat  is  born  of  a 
few  days,  and  full  of  trouble^.  He 
cometh  forth  like  a  flower,  and  is  cut 
down :  he  fleeth  also  as  a  shadow,  and 
continueth  not."  We  hear  it  in  the 
terrible  verdict  of  Ecclesiastes :  "  For 
who  knoweth  what  is  good  for  man  in 
this  life,  all  the  days  of  his  vain  life 
which  he  spendeth  as  a  shadow?  for 
who  can  tell  a  man  what  shall  be  after 
him  under  the  sun?  "  Lucretius  over 
flows  with  it:  — 

"  Surgit  amari  aliquid  medio  de  fonte  leporum." 

Nor  is  this  tone  less  familiar  to  the 
Christian  than  to  the  antique  mind. 
Religious  writers  often  dwell  on  the 


THE    AMERICAN   PESSIMIST.  5 

misery  of  this  world  to  bring  out  the 
attractions  of  the  next,  but  the  misery 
of  this  seems  the  prominent  feature. 

Nor  is  the  cry  of  agony  confined  to 
dark  and  melancholy  souls.  It  is 
more  frequent  with  them,  but  the  great 
master  spirits  of  the  world  give  way 
at  times.  Even  Shakspere,  bright 
magician,  skilled  in  loveliness  and 
charm,  had  his  moments  of  despair, 
—  moments  unknown  to  us  except  for 
the  sonnets :  — 

"  Tired  with  all  these,  for  restful  death  I  cry." 

Even  Emerson,  most  optimistic  of 
men,  has  touches  here  and  there,  if 
one  looks  for  them,  of  vast  discourage 
ment. 

When  the  warm  autumn  evenings 
settle  down,  who  can  resist  this  mood; 
or  in  the  first  days  of  bursting  spring, 
when  the  world  is  flooded,  drenched, 


6         TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

with  vitality,  and  one  asks  one's  self 
in  terror,  almost,  For  what  is  it  all,  for 
what,  for  what?  —  so  resistless  is  the 
flow  and  tide  of  nature,  so  aimless  and 
incomprehensible,  so  vast.  The  frail 
intelligence  of  man  seems  diluted  in 
this  wider  element  of  semi-nothing 
ness,  of  unprecipitated  being.  Again, 
on  some  clear  October  or  January 
morning,  it  is  as  if  the  will  of  the 
universe  were  concentrated  in  the 
muscles  of  one's  own  right  arm. 
Strange  uncontrollable  shifting  of  our 
moods  and  purposes ! 

But  there  is  a  pessimism  which  is  a 
matter  neither  of  mood  nor  of  theory, 
but  of  temperament.  Most  men  are 
born  with  a  moderate  view,  taking 
things  as  they  come,  but  some  with  a 
natural  tendency  to  see  the  world  all 
white  or  all  black.  Who  does  not 
know  the  constitutional  optimist,  who 


THE   AMERICAN   PESSIMIST.  7 

is  always  well,  always  has  been  well, 
or  always  is  going  to  be  well;  who  is 
pleased  with  the  present,  satisfied  with 
the  past,  full  of  gorgeous  hope  for  the 
future;  for  whom  it  never  rains,  or 
shines,  or  blows,  except  for  the  benefit 
of  some  one;  who  sees  what  he  calls 
the  good  side  in  all  events,  in  all 
people;  who  makes  one  wish,  some 
times,  that  some  misfortune  would 
befall  him  signal  enough  to  make  him 
"curse  God  and  die"?  Who  does 
not  know  the  constitutional  pessimist, 
to  whom  the  opposite  of  this  descrip 
tion  applies;  who  may  not  have  intelli 
gence  or  knowledge  enough  to  accept 
the  theories  of  Schopenhauer  and  Leo- 
pardi,  but  who  carries  them  out  in 
practice?  Every  inauspicious  glance 
of  Nature  is  especially  for  him.  The 
dust  flies  for  him,  the  frost  bites  for 
him,  the  whole  planetary  system  re- 


8          TYPES    OF    AMERICAN    CHARACTER. 

volves  with  the  sole  end  of  frustrating 
his  purposes.  One  wearies,  at  times, 
of  the  optimist,  but,  except  for  those 
who  are  obliged  to  tolerate  him,  a  pro 
longed  cohabitation  with  such  a  pessi 
mist  becomes  simply  intolerable. 

This  is  but  a  crude  form  of  consti 
tutional  pessimism,  however,  —  a  form 
of  indigestion,  perhaps  I  should 
rather  say,  peculiarly  attendant  on 
the  combination  of  a  vigorous  tem 
perament  with  a  lack  of  occupation. 
There  is  another  manifestation  of  the 
tendency,  infinitely  finer  and  more 
subtle,  —  the  only  one,  as  I  think, 
really  worthy  of  the  name.  This  spe 
cies  of  pessimism  is  found,  I  suppose, 
all  over  the  world;  most  intellectual 
maladies  are,  though  this  may  never 
have  been  so  highly  developed  as  in 
our  nineteenth  century.  But  it  has 
especially  come  under  my  observation 


THE   AMERICAN   PESSIMIST.  9 

here  in  our  own  America;  and  it  is  as 
it  exists  here  that  I  wish  to  describe 
it.  Not  that  it  is  very  common. 
Many  of  my  readers  will  say  they  do 
not  know  such  a  person  as  I  am  por 
traying;  but  some  will  be  able  to  lay 
their  fingers  on  one  instantly.  The 
disease,  too,  is  important,  not  from 
its  quantity,  but  from  its  quality;  it 
attacks  some  of  the  very  clearest  and 
richest  and  subtlest  minds  among  us. 
This  pessimism  is  wholly  different 
from  the  crude  discontent  and  lack  of 
harmony  with  surroundings  that  I  have 
referred  to  above.  Such  a  man  as  we 
are  speaking  of  has  too  much  philoso 
phy,  if  I  may  call  it  so,  too  much 
pride,  too  large  a  view,  to  set  himself 
in  a  pitiful  and  petty  antagonism  with 
the  ample  and  eternal  forces  which  go 
to  make  up  what  we  call  Nature.  He 
has  a  suave  indifference  to  small  dis- 


10      TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

comforts  that  at  times  leads  superficial 
people  to  confound  him  with  the  opti 
mist;  for  he  has  few  of  those  turbulent 
and  fleeting  bursts  of  temper  which 
overcome  the  serenest  of  us.  He 
faces  great  misfortunes  and  even  small 
annoyances  with  the  same  inexplicable, 
unalterable  smile,  —  a  smile  more  fitted 
to  move  the  looker-on  to  tears  than  to 
any  outbreak  of  accordant  mirth. 
^No,  the  modern  pessimist,  the  true, 
incurable  pessimist,  is  not,  perhaps,  a 
pessimist  at  all.  He  does  not  rail,  or 
curse  God,  or  despise  man.  If  his 
state  of  mind  can  be  described,  it  is 
by  saying  that  he  has  thought,  not 
himself,  but  everything  besides  him 
self,  into  a  shadow.  He  is  a  man  who 
has  embarked  on  the  wide  sea  of  in 
tellectual  discovery,  and  has  found 
that  for  him  it  is  a  barren  sea,  blank, 
desolate,  —  a  sea  shoreless,  where  the 


THE   AMERICAN   PESSIMIST.  II 

traveller  voyages  on  aimlessly  forever 
in  a  misty  void. }  He  is  a  man  for 
whom  the  fevereB,  passionate  whirl  of 
life,  so  fierce,  so  intense,  so  real,  to 
other  men,  is  but  a  disordered  dream, 
—  a  dream  of  which  no  one  knows  the 
beginning,  and  no  one  can  prophesy 
the  end.  He  is  a  man  to  whom  the 
present  is  a  reality  only  in  comparison 
with  the  utter  darkness  of  the  future 
and  the  past,  — £a  man  to  whom  faith 
and  hope  are  shadows,  and  charity 
is  the  emptiest  and  vainest  of  super 
structures,  from  which  all  foundation 
has  been  eaten  away.  \ 

But,  some  one  says,  this  is  not  pes 
simism.  You  are  misusing  the  word, 
and  disguising  in  flowery  rhetoric 
something  which  should  go  by  another 
name.  But  no  other  name  will  quite 
cover  what  I  mean.  Practical  Epi 
cureanism  is  a  philosophy  very  popular 


12       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

among  us,  as  indeed  it  has  been  popu 
lar  at  all  times  and  everywhere,  though 
not  always  so  openly  proclaimed  and 
without  veil  as  it  is  to-day.  The  prac 
tical  Epicurean  is  quite  as  much  with 
out  belief  as  the  pessimist  I  speak  of; 
he  is  quite  as  free  from  prejudices  as 
to  morals  or  religion,  quite  as  ready 
to  disclaim  adherence  to  inherited 
ideas.  But  he  simply  flings  all  these 
things  aside.  From  his  want  of  be 
lief,  when  he  reasons  at  all,  he  draws 
a  solid  and  comfortable  conclusion: 
Let  us  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  for 
to-morrow  we  die.  That  conclusion 
is  the  basis,  conscious  or  unconscious, 
of  a  vast  deal  of  American  life  to-day, 
modified  only  by  the  fact  that  the 
American  has  not  yet  really  learned 
how  to  enjoy  himself,  and  seeks  dis 
traction  in  endless  and  feverish  mental 
excitement  rather  than  in  the  subtle 


THE   AMERICAN   PESSIMIST.  13 

and   judiciously  husbanded  pleasures 
of  the  senses. 

Now,  the  life  of  our  pessimist  is  as 
far  from  this  as  possible.  Qt  is  true 
that  he  has  lost  all  faith,  if  he  ever 
had  any.  He  has  long  ago  recognized 
that  the  intellect  is  a  will-o'-the-wisp, 
kindling  its  fitful  gleam,  now  here, 
now  there,  in  the  vast  plashy  meadow 
of  perceptive  existence,  but  leading  to 
no  sure  and  solid  foothold,  drawing 
the  weary  wanderer  only  deeper  and 
deeper  in  the  mire.  Yet,  knowing 
this,  he  cannot  resist  the  fatal  charm. 
He  has  tasted  the  alluring  sweets  of 
abstract  reverie,  and  he  can  never  give 
them  up.  Once  caught  in  the  toil  of 
that  enchantress,  there  is  no  escape, 
—  she,  the  true  Circe,  who,  instead  of 
enslaving  men  to  the  joys  of  sense, 
turns  those  joys  themselves  into  the 
shadow  of  a  shade-JYes,  even  if  the 


14       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

pessimist  would  shut  up  the  cavern  of 
his  mind  and  strew  it  over  with  the 
roses  and  the  charm  of  life,  he  cannot. 
Still,  still  he  is  haunted  with  the  con 
sciousness  of  the  drear  abyss  beneath. 
It  is  true  to  him,  too  true,  that  to 
morrow  we  die,  and,  in  the  face  of 
that  fact,  how  can  he  eat,  drink,  and 
be  merry? 

But  am  I  not  describing  an  agnos 
tic?  To  a  certain  extent,  yes.  The 
pessimist,  in  this  sense,  does  deny  the 
possibility  of  real  knowledge,  cogni 
tion  of  the  Absolute,  as  does  the  ag 
nostic.  Yet  no!  He  does  not  deny 
or  assert  anything.  He  himself  knows 
nothing  about  the  Absolute,  but  others 
may.  After  all,  the  agnostic  belongs 
to  a  sect,  a  dogmatic  sect,  a  sect  ready 
for  the  most  part  to  decry  what  it 
calls  the  superstitions  of  other  people. 
Now,  to  our  pessimist,  dogmatism  is, 


THE   AMERICAN   PESSIMIST.  15 

of  all  things,  hateful.  Just  because 
he  believes  nothing,  he  is  alive  to 
the  possibility  of  believing  anything 
or  everything.  The  most  monstrous 
superstition,  except  as  it  involves  in 
tolerance  and  cruelty,  is  to  him  as 
worthy  of  respect  as  the  refined  ab 
stractions  of  the  Hegelian.  As  faiths, 
they  mean  to  him  nothing;  as  phe 
nomena  of  the  human  intelligence, 
they  are  alike  curious  objects  for  the 
ceaseless  play  of  thought. 

It  is  true  that  we  might  fall  back  on 
the  term  "sceptic."  But  that,  also, 
implies  a  system,  bears  with  it  some 
inference  of  Pyrrhonism,  and  a  hard 
ened  determination  to  question  every 
thing  whatever.  So  natural  are  theory 
and  a  creed  to  humanity  that  it  erects 
even  its  profoundest  doubt  into  a 
dogma. 

Therefore,  until  something  better  is 


1 6       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

suggested,  we  still  must  call  the  sub 
ject  of  our  examination  a  pessimist. 
He  is  not  a  shrieking  fanatic,  like 
Leopardi  or  Schopenhauer,  who  pa 
rades  his  own  despair  in  the  eyes  of 
an  unsympathetic  world.  Such  dem 
onstrations  seem  to  him  crude  and 
unwarrantable.  The  deepest  mystery 
of  things  is  too  august  to  be  hailed 
with  such  abuse  as  a  fretful  child 
showers  upon  its  nurse.  But  his  pes 
simism  is  rather  an  indefinable  shade 
of  gray  which  pervades  his  whole  view 
of  life,  —  silent,  uncomplaining,  but 
profoundly  hopeless. 

It  is  here  that  the  peculiarity  of  the 
American  type  must  be  taken  into 
account.  Men  such  as  I  have  been 
describing  are  to  be  found  all  over 
Europe,  all  over  the  civilized  world. 
In  France  they  are  very  numerous, 
and  the  great  French  literature  of  to- 


THE   AMERICAN   PESSIMIST.  If 

day  is  largely  built  up  by  them.  In 
deed,  the  tradition  of  the  race  began 
long  ago  in  France,  in  more  or  less 
disguised  forms;  clad  in  gorgeous 
rhetoric  in  Chateaubriand,  touched 
with  fevered  passion  in  Senancour, 
nursed  to  his  own  destruction  by 
Maurice  de  Gue"rin.  It  is  the  ground 
tone  of  the  great  French  realistic 
novelists,  Stendhal,  Balzac,  Flaubert, 
the  De  Goncourts,  Zola,  the  half- 
French  Turgeneff ;  and,  in  the  younger 
generation,  of  such  men  as  Paul  Bour- 
get  and  Guy  de  Maupassant.  But 
there  is  an  immense  distinction  be 
tween  these  men  and  their  Ameri 
can  fellow.  He  is  as  profoundly  and 
completely  sceptical  as  they  are;  but, 
owing  to  a  difference  of  race,  or,  it 
may  be,  to  the  traditions  of  Puritan 
ism  that  still  linger  in  his  blood,  he 
is  less  brutal  than  they,  —  is,  in  fact, 
c 


1 8       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

as  far  as  possible  from  brutality. 
From  their  complete  disbelief  in  all 
moral  law,  they  deduce  a  profound 
viciousness  and  uncleanness  of  tone 
and  habit,  not  from  any  great  pleasure 
in  the  enjoyments  of  the  senses,  but 
simply  from  hatred  of  the  conven 
tional,  the  bourgeois.  To  him  such 
licentiousness  is  wholly  repulsive,  it 
offends  his  taste;  he  lives  and  thinks 
as  purely  as  a  fanatic. 

Yes,  he  has  inherited  many  things 
from  his  Puritan  ancestors,  this  child 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  whom  they 
would  spurn  and  scorn  more  even  than 
the  fiercest  heretic  or  the  most  godless 
debauchee.  Their  glowing  love  of  a 
saintly  ideal  still  lingers  in  his  veins, 
possesses  him  at  times  with  a  wild 
desire  for  the  beauty  of  holiness,  mak 
ing  the  void  only  blacker  and  bleaker 
when  it  fades  away.  He  has  inherited 


THE   AMERICAN    PESSIMIST.  IQ 

from  them  a  fastidious  scrupulosity 
of  conscience,  which  haunts  him  in 
minute  details,  even  when  conscience 
itself  has  become  to  him  an  idle  illu 
sion.  Vices  he  has  none.  Faults  he 
may  have,  arising  from  indifference 
and  lack  of  enthusiasm;  but  the  more 
passive  virtues,  gentleness,  tenderness, 
mildness,  infinite  toleration,  —  no  one 
has  them  more  than  he.  These  things 
make  him  beloved  in  spite  of  the  chill 
which  he  casts  over  everything,  for  he 
is  ready  to  listen  to  other  people's  joys 
and  woes,  and  not  burden  them  with 
his  own.  Indeed,  simply  to  meet  him 
and  talk  with  him,  you  would  never 
become  aware  of  the  profound  dark 
ness  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart.  You 
would  think  him  ready  to  agree  with 
your  own  Methodism,  or  Episcopalian- 
ism,  or  what  not.  Only  rarely,  if  you 
are  unusually  penetrating,  there  would 


20       TYPES    OF    AMERICAN    CHARACTER. 

be  a  glance  that  would  put  you  on  your 
guard. 

Is  he  then  hypocritical,  inconsist 
ent?  Inconsistent,  yes.  I  have  heard 
a  Philistine  described  as  one  "who 
lives  from  convention,  not  from  con 
viction."  If  the  definition  is  accurate, 
our  pessimist  is  a  thorough  Philistine; 
for  he  abhors  convictions,  and  has 
none  of  any  kind  whatever.  Yet  the 
poor  man  must  live. 

And  he  does  live.  If  you  ask  him, 
he  will  probably  say  that  life  brings 
him,  on  the  whole,  more  misery  than 
happiness,  by  far.  Yet  he  lives,  either 
because  he  is  mistaken,  or  because  the 
tremendous  unreasoning  instinct  that 
makes  us  cry  out  for  life  —  life,  good 
or  bad  —  predominates  over  him  as 
over  the  rest  of  us.  He  lives,  often, 
to  a  gray  old  age,  and  sees  his  children 
around  him.  There  are  bright  spots, 


THE    AMERICAN    PESSIMIST.  21 

too,  even  for  him,  sunny  nooks  in  an 
autumn  day,  where  he  can  fly  the  cold 
north  and  dream  that  there  is  some 
thing  that  is  not  a  dream;  something 
stable,  worth  grasping,  worth  loving; 
something  that  will  not  fade  away. 
But,  for  the  rest,  he  bears  his  lot  as 
he  can,  without  murmur  or  complaint; 
looking  on  at  the  vast  and  varied  ban 
quet  of  the  world,  from  which  he  alone 
goes  away  unsatisfied;  gazing,  an  idle 
and  yet  not  an  uninterested  spectator, 
at  the  curious  and  futile  show  which 
the  vagaries  of  language  and  the  tra 
ditions  of  our  ancestors  have  taught 
us  to  call  life. 


THE   AMERICAN    IDEALIST. 

THE  word  "  idealism  "  is  in  many 
minds  connected  with  a  philo 
sophical  system  that  is  mainly  nega 
tive.  The  critical  and  destructive 
portion  of  Kant's  work  has  become  so 
widely  known  as  the  basis  of  German 
philosophy  that  an  idealist  is  supposed 
to  be  one  who  believes  the  whole  em 
pirical  world  to  be  a  delusion;  who 
sees  no  reality  but  his  own  thought, 
and  cannot  rest  even  that  reality  on  a 
solid  foundation;  a  nihilist,  in  short. 
Could  anything  be  more  mistaken? 
Is  there  a  philosophy  more  trium 
phant,  more  overflowing  with  faith, 
more  world-storming,  than  true  ideal- 

22 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  23 

ism?  Is  there  a  man  whose  convic 
tions  are  firmer,  more  self -asserting, 
more  vigorous,  more  joyous,  than 
those  of  the  true  idealist?  Instead  of 
doubting  the  existence  of  things,  he 
is  penetrated  with  the  intensity,  the 
self  -demonstrating  sureness,  of  reality; 
he  cannot  resist  it  if  he  would;  every 
moment  of  life  is  to  him  crowded  and 
packed  with  certainty,  though  perhaps 
not  so  much  with  the  certainty  of 
material  phenomena  as  with  that  of 
moral  and  spiritual  facts,  of  ideas. 
He  is  by  nature  a  believer.  Every 
thing  shows,  I  think,  that  Kant 
himself,  in  spite  of  his  "world-over 
turning  "  speculations,  was  the  pro- 
foundest  of  believers. 

At  the  same  time  something  can  be 
said  for  the  common  view.  If  the 
idealist  does  not  dissolve  the  world  in 
his  own  mind,  he  projects  his  own 


24       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

mind  upon  the  world.  He  lives 
among  theories,  among  types,  to 
which  facts  must  accommodate  them 
selves  or  suffer  for  it.  He  does  not 
love  inductive  methods,  prefers  work 
ing  a  priori.  How  can  things  be 
except  as  they  ought  to  be?  Every 
idealist  constructs  in  his  own  way  a 
skeleton  like  the  great  logical  schemes 
of  Plato  or  Hegel,  round  which  the 
world  of  perception  must  flow  gently, 
and  shape  itself  in  a  fleshly  garment, 
sometimes  beautifully  draped  and 
adjusted,  sometimes  falling  in  harsh 
folds  with  a  melancholy  stiffness.  In 
this  sense  it  may  be  said  that  the 
idealist  destroys  the  world,  and  builds 
it  for  himself  anew. 

The  division  on  these  lines  into 
idealist  and  realist  absorbs  all  human 
ity.  There  are  the  men  who  see  things 
as  they  are  and  the  men  who  see  them 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  25 

as  they  would  have  them.  To  put  it 
more  fairly,  there  are  those  who  take 
each  fact  of  experience  by  itself,  let 
ting  it  get  connected  with  other  facts 
as  it  can;  there  are  those  who  find  for 
every  fact  its  proper  place  in  the  vast 
and  perfect  order  of  nature.  These 
two  different  classes  can  never  quite 
understand  each  other  or  work  to 
gether.  In  one  the  subjective  is  sub 
ordinated  to  the  objective;  in  the 
other  the  subject  rides  triumphant  and 
supreme,  the  object  being  reduced  to 
servile  insignificance. 

The  scientific  tone  of  mind,  the 
modern  critical  spirit,  is  distinctly 
realist.  It  aims  to  make"  itself  a  mere 
passive  instrument,  played  upon,  like 
an  ^olian  harp,  by  all  the  influences 
of  the  outer  world.  Indeed,  the  in 
tellect  pure  and  simple  does  not  favour 
idealism,  which  springs  essentially 


26       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

from  the  moral  side  of  our  nature. 
The  intellect  is  always  striving  to  be 
impersonal;  the  heart,  the  emotions, 
are  what  drive  us,  with  feverish  inten 
sity,  to  assert  ourselves.  Now,  the 
intellect  has  become  more  predomi 
nant  in  the  nineteenth  century  than  it 
has  ever  been  before  in  the  history  of 
the  world. 

Yet  what  a  curious  illustration  of 
nature's  revenges  is  the  spread  of  pes 
simism  side  by  side  with  this  mighty 
development  of  the  intellect !  Pessi 
mism  is  idealism  turned  inside  out. 
Every  pessimist  has  in  him  the  ele 
ments  of  an  enthusiastic  idealist;  for 
if  he  did  not  imagine  a  more  perfect 
world,  why  should  he  find  so  much 
fault  with  this?  Only  the  clear-eyed 
intellect  thinks  the  ideal  world  hope 
lessly  far  away;  and  the  dull,  muddy 
world  about  us  seems  vile  in  compari- 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  2f 

son.  A  French  critic  remarks:  "I 
wrote  it  twenty-five  years  ago,  'the 
supernatural '  "  —  let  us  read,  the  ideal, 

—  "'is  the  sphere  of  the  soul,'  and  I 
see  no  reason  for  changing  my  mind. 
The  only  thing   I  would  add  now  is 
this  melancholy   reflection,    that   one 
may    demand    the    Absolute    without 
being  sure  of  getting  it.     The  child, 
also,  cries  for  the  moon,  when  it  has 
seen  the  reflection  in  a  well." 

Of  the  numerous  spiritual  types  that 
humanity  presents,  some  are  perma 
nent  and  some  are  transitory.  A  good 
example  of  the  latter  is  the  miser. 
There  is  plenty  of  meanness,  of  nig 
gardliness  and  foolish  sparing,  in  the 
nineteenth  century;  but  you  do  not 
often  find,  in  this  country,  at  any  rate, 
a  man  who  hoards  gold  simply  for  the 
pleasure  of  counting  it,  of  eyeing  it, 

—  who  grudges  equally  the  spending 


28       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

of  one  dollar  and  of  a  thousand. 
People  seek  to  acquire  money,  as  they 
have  always  done,  because  money 
gives  the  means  for  gratifying  their 
passions,  because  it  gives  power;  but 
they  do  not  often  seek  it  for  the  actual 
accumulation  of  precious  metal.  This 
may  be  owing  to  the  colossal  size  of 
modern  fortunes,  which  makes  money 
less  a  reality  than  a  dream  j  it  is  more 
probably  caused  by  the  introduction  of 
paper  currency  and  the  banking  sys 
tem.  The  clink  of  gold  affords  a 
pleasure  not  to  be  found  in  fingering 
greenbacks.  Certain  literary  figures 
have  lost  their  interest  for  us  on  ac 
count  of  this  change,  —  figures  like 
Moliere's  Harpagon  and  the  heroes  of 
many  of  La  Fontaine's  fables. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  types 
belong  to  this  century  only,  or  to  this 
and  the  preceding.  The  philanthro- 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  29 

pist  is  one  of  these,  —  the  man  who 
devotes  his  life  to  working  for  man 
kind  not  from  any  lofty  religious  prin 
ciple,  sometimes  even  with  no  great 
belief  in  the  goodness  or  worth  of 
humanity;  doing  it  either  from  pure 
sympathy  and  love,  or  because  he  has 
no  other  means  of  satisfying  a  restless 
desire  for  action.  Another  modern 
type  is  the  critic,  perhaps  I  should 
say  the  scientist,  who  has  reduced  his 
own  personality  to  a  minimum,  and 
lives  on  curiosity;  who  thrusts  him 
self  into  the  spiritual  garments  of 
other  men,  or  probes  the  secrets  of 
nature,  drawing  into  his  own  veins 
the  blood  and  life  that  circulate  else 
where. 

But  idealists  are  confined  neither  to 
the  ninth  century  nor  to  the  nine 
teenth.  The  first  man  who  framed  for 
himself  another  life  beyond  this  world 


30       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

or  outside  of  it,  the  first  man  who 
laboured  and  toiled  with  hand  and 
brain  to  bring  about  a  paradise  in  the 
future,  or  dreamed  of  a  paradise  in 
the  past,  was  the  first  idealist.  In 
spite  of  all  negations,  of  all  icono- 
clasms,  of  the  downfall  of  this  creed 
and  of  that  creed,  the  world  will  never 
see  the  last.  The  ideal  is  infinite  in 
its  persistence,  infinite  in  its  protean 
power  of  reembodiment,  remanifesta- 
tion.  All  it  demands  is  faith  in  some 
thing,  belief  in  something,  beyond  the 
passing  sensuous  impression:  give  it 
that,  and  it  will  conquer  the  world. 
For  its  advantage  over  positivism  and 
scepticism  consists  in  its  being  affirm 
ative,  in  its  perpetual  self-assertion. 
Those  who  follow  it  follow  undoubt- 
ing,  absolutely  mastered.  In  Heine's 
words,  —  and  let  me  remark  that 
Heine  wrote  "  Idea,"  and  not  "  ideas," 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  3! 

as  it  stands  in  the  epigraph  of  one  of 
our  magazines :  "  We  do  not  seize  upon 
the  Idea;  the  Idea  seizes  us,  and  en 
slaves  us,  and  lashes  us  into  the  arena, 
where  we  fight  for  it  like  gladiators, 
whether  we  will  or  no."  What  a  mas 
querade  this  worship  of  the  Idea  gives 
us,  sweeping  down  in  bright  order 
through  the  shadowy  past!  The  ob 
stinate  hope  of  the  Jews  for  their  Mes 
siah,  the  patriotism  of  the  Greeks  at 
Thermopylae,  the  Christian  martyrs, 
the  glittering  Crusades,  the  Renais 
sance,  the  sanguinary  passion  of  the 
French  Revolution,  —  these  are  the 
gleaming  points  in  the  great  web  of 
enthusiasm  for  all  causes  and  all  faiths. 
Believe!  Believe!  Only  believe!  And 
all  things  shall  be  added  unto  you. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  enu 
meration  that  nations  are  idealists  as 
well  as  individuals.  Is  not  the  Bible 


32       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

the  monument  of  indomitable  idealism 
in  a  whole  race?  —  a  race  narrow, 
indeed,  in  its  conceptions,  not  much 
concerned  with  the  intellectual  prob 
lems  that  please  the  Aryans,  yet  in 
tensely  and  fiercely  moral,  and  showing 
its  idealism  in  the  positive  force  of  its 
morality,  in  not  being  content  with 
perfecting  itself,  but  in  being  deter 
mined  to  overcome  the  whole  world. 
Has  idealism  ever  been  manifested 
with  more  energy  and  splendour  than 
in  the  lament  of  Job,  or  the  denuncia 
tion  of  David,  or  the  lovely  visions 
of  Isaiah?  "For,  behold,  I  create 
new  heavens  and  a  new  earth :  and  the 
former  shall  not  be  remembered,  nor 
come  into  mind."  Is  not  that  the 
text  of  the  idealist  everywhere  ?  "  But 
unto  you  that  fear  my  name  shall  the 
Sun  of  righteousness  arise  with  healing 
in  his  wings."  For  that  rising  not 


THE    AMERICAN    IDEALIST.  33 

only  Jew  but  Gentile  waits,  has  waited, 
and  will  wait  forever,  with  the  fervour 
of  an  unconquerable  hope. 

A  blind  enthusiasm  of  the  same  sort, 
though  grosser  in  its  materialism,  was 
at  the  bottom  of  the  great  Mohamme 
dan  movement.  The  intenser  form  of 
idealism,  at  least  in  religious  matters, 
seems  to  be  found  outside  the  Aryan 
races,  which  agrees  with  what  I  said 
above  as  to  the  results  of  intellectual 
development  in  individuals.  Even 
among  Aryan  nations,  however,  there 
are,  as  one  can  see,  vast  differences 
in  this  respect.  Perhaps,  taking  into 
account  the  fact  that  we  must  live  in 
this  world  as  it  is,  with  all  its  imper 
fections,  the  Greeks,  in  their  best 
days,  came  as  near  to  a  just  harmo 
nizing  of  the  real  and  the  ideal  as  is 
possible.  The  Romans,  on  the  other 
hand,  were,  as  a  people,  positivists 
D 


34       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

beyond  any  the  world  has  seen;  posi- 
tivists  to  such  a  point  that,  with  the 
exception  of  two  great  poems,  —  even 
those  largely  imitative,  —  they  alone 
of  all  important  nations,  ancient  or 
modern,  left  behind  them  no  trace  of 
original  work  in  any  one  of  the  fine 
arts. 

Among  modern  European  nations, 
the  English  are  most  like  the  Romans, 
in  this  as  in  other  things.  Their 
poetry  saves  them  from  the  same  de 
gree  of  reproach;  yet  their  poetry  is  at 
its  best  in  the  drama,  and  the  drama 
is  the  form  of  poetry  that  lends  itself 
least  to  idealistic  purposes.  The 
French  are  more  distinctly  idealist. 
Indeed,  we  may  safely  say  that,  gen 
erally  speaking,  the  Kelts  always  are 
so,  while  the  Teutonic  races  are 
soberer,  more  practical.  A  moment's 
consideration  of  English  history  and 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  35 

character   compared   with   French   or 
Irish  will  suffice  to  prove  this. 

To  return  to  individuals.  This  en 
thusiasm,  faith,  takes  naturally  very 
different  forms  in  different  minds.  In 
some  it  is  calm,  serene,  gentle;  works 
upon  mankind  by  mild  and  sweet  per 
suasiveness,  by  an  influence  that 
spreads  unconsciously,  yet  all  the  more 
powerfully.  In  others  it  is  stormy, 
impetuous,  rejoicing  in  difficulties, 
rejoicing  in  struggle  and  sacrifice, 
seeming  to  acquire  firmer  conviction 
by  the  sense  of  victory  hardly  earned. 
We  need  not  go  far  for  examples  of 
both  these  classes.  Where  could  we 
find  the  contrast  better  illustrated  than 
in  the  Founder  of  Christianity  and  its 
greatest  apostle?  Paul  cries,  not 
once,  but  again  and  again,  in  varying 
words :  "  For  I  delight  in  the  law  of 
God  after  the  inward  man :  but  I  see 


36       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

another  law  in  my  members,  warring 
against  the  law  of  my  mind,  and 
bringing  me  into  captivity  to  the  law 
of  sin  which  is  in  my  members.  O 
wretched  man  that  I  am!  who  shall 
deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this 
death?"  How  different,  ah,  how  dif 
ferent  is  this  other  tone !  "  Take  my 
yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  me.  .  .  . 
For  my  yoke  is  easy,  and  my  burden 
is  light." 

Examples  of  such  opposite  tenden 
cies  might  be  multiplied  infinitely. 
In  literature,  take,  for  instance,  Byron 
and  Shelley.  Byron  was  certainly  an 
idealist  in  his  way;  but  he  would  have 
been  inclined  to  mend  the  world  by 
shattering  it  to  pieces.  Shelley, 
whose  "passion  for  reforming  the 
world  "  marks  him  as  one  of  the  most 
intense  idealists  of  our  century,  was 
the  sweetest  of  men. 


THE   AMERICAN    IDEALIST.  37 

It  is  clear  enough  that  the  idealist  l 
is  not  necessarily  either  moral  or  re 
ligious.  What  he  must  have  is  an 
abiding  and  inspiring  enthusiasm  for 
something  that  demands  devotion  and 
sacrifice;  this  something  may  be  re 
ligion,  it  may  be  humanity,  it  may  be 
beauty,  it  may  be  one's  country,  it 
may  be  power,  it  may  be  wealth.  The 
distinction  lies  not  so  much  in  the 
object  as  in  the  spirit  with  which  it  is 
pursued.  Alexander  was  an  idealist; 
Caesar  was  not.  Shakspere,  so  far  as 
we  can  judge,  was  not;  Milton  was. 
Napoleon,  in  spite  of  his  hatred  of 
ideologues,  was  an  idealist  himself. 
There  is  no  way  to  make  this  felt  more 
clearly  than  by  contrasting  him  with 
Wellington,  in  whom  the  genius  of  his 
country  may  be  said  to  have  been  em 
bodied,  as,  in  a  certain  sense,  that  of 
France  was  in  Napoleon.  The  ideal- 


38       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

ist  may,  then,  be  selfish  in  as  high  a 
degree,  as  absolutely,  as  he  may  be 
virtuous.  Indeed,  even  when  his  pre 
occupation  is  wholly  with  what  is  high 
and  pure,  he  may  be  caustic,  crabbed, 
unlovable,  to  those  about  him.  He 
often  is  so,  with  his  impatience  at  not 
being  understood,  his  keen  percep 
tion  of  the  woful  difference  between 
the  world  as  it  is  and  the  world  as  he 
would  have  it. 

This  is  the  limitation,  the  negative 
side.  Conviction,  in  this  world,  so 
often  brings  intolerance.  The  French 
writer  I  quoted  just  now  says  else 
where:  "The  fundamental  dogma  of 
intolerance  is  that  there  are  dogmas; 
that  of  tolerance,  that  there  are  only 
opinions."  But  the  Idea  is  more  than 
a  dogma,  it  is  a  fact,  in  the  mind  of 
the  believer.  How  can  he  look  upon 
it  as  a  mere  opinion,  discutable,  dis- 


THE   AMERICAN    IDEALIST.  39 

putable?  How  can  he  put  himself  in 
the  place  of  another,  disown  his  own 
position,  admit  even  the  possibility  of 
being  wrong?  He  works  by  sight,  not 
by  faith;  by  an  intuition  that  allows 
no  question  and  no  doubt.  Hence 
the  sweetest  of  idealists  must  think 
you  ignorant  and  to  be  pitied,  if  you 
differ  from  him.  He  will  not  abuse 
or  revile  you,  but  he  will  regard  you 
at  best  as  an  object  for  conversion. 
The  idealist  who  is  not  sweet  will  not 
refrain  from  expressing  his  opinion. 
To  come  to  what  is  properly  Ameri 
can.  The  ty2ical  American  is,  or 
was,  English  in  his  origin,  and  I  have 
said  that  the  English  are  not  idealists. 
Furthermore,  it  was  the  Puritans  who 
emigrated  to  this  country,  and  the 
Puritans  embodied  what  was  least 
idealistic  in  the  English  nature.  It 
is  bold,  perhaps,  to  say  so,  but  I  am 


40       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

convinced  that  what  makes  the  Puri 
tans  unattractive,  in  spite  of  their  vir 
tues,  is  this  very  fact,  that  they  were 
not  idealists.  For  the  most  part,  the 
English  religious  movement  of  the 
seventeenth  century  was  a  revolt  of 
common  sense,  as  indeed  was  the 
Reformation  in  general.  The  English 
political  movement  of  the  seventeenth 
century  was  of  the  same  nature,  as 
one  may  see  by  contrasting  it  with 
the  French  Revolution,  Hampden 
with  Robespierre.  It  may  be  said 
that  if  this  be  the  case  the  English 
were  blessed  in  not  being  idealists. 
With  that  we  have  nothing  to  do  in 
this  simple  search  after  facts.  What 
I  have  asserted  above  is  exactly  what 
Matthew  Arnold  meant  when  he  spoke 
of  Luther  as  the  "  Philistine  of  genius 
in  religion,"  Bunyan  as  the  "Philis 
tine  of  genius  in  literature,"  Crom- 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  41 

well  as  the  "Philistine  of  genius  in 
politics,"  all  taken  from  the  group 
of  men  connected  with  new-born 
Protestantism. 

The  Puritans  who  left  England  for 
America  were  perhaps  more  idealistic 
than  those  who  remained  at  home; 
yet  the  most  striking  thing  about  the 
founders  of  New  England  is  their 
stern  good  sense.  It  has  stuck  by 
their  descendants  till  the  present  day. 
The  characteristic  religion  of  New 
England,  Unitarianism,  is  the  relig 
ion  of  good  sense,  the  least  idealistic 
religion  that  has  ever  professed  to 
connect  itself  with  Christianity. 

The  American  of  to-day,  however, 
either  from  race  intermixture  or  from 
influences  of  climate  or  of  institu 
tions,  is  manifestly  different  from  his 
English  progenitor.  He  is  quicker, 
keener,  less  conservative,  though  still 


42       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

conservative.  His  intelligence  is  in 
ventive,  and  proverbially  seeks  rapid 
ways  to  come  at  things.  He  is  ex 
tremely  practical,  —  more  than  that, 
material;  dazed,  it  would  seem,  by 
the  immense  resources  of  his  coun 
try,  by  the  immense  opportunities  it 
affords  for  accumulating  wealth,  and 
with  it  power.  He  is,  for  the  pres 
ent,  wholly  absorbed  in  the  means; 
careless  of  the  end,  if  there  be  an  end 
at  all.  Yet  his  spiritual  eye  is  shut 
rather  than  blinded.  If  you  can  open 
it,  it  is  wonderfully  quick  and  pene 
trating.  He  is  restless,  too,  dissatis 
fied  with  traditions,  with  old-world 
beliefs,  doctrines,  ideas.  He  half 
thinks  there  should  be  a  new  relig 
ion,  as  vast  and  modern  as  his  needs. 
We  perceive  the  same  restlessness  in 
the  later  Roman  world,  with  some 
what  similar  conditions.  Men  were 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  43 

dissatisfied  with  their  old  faith;  all  vi 
tal  belief  in  it  had  disappeared;  every 
where  they  were  doubting,  wondering. 
Before  the  spread  of  Christianity,  all 
sorts  of  religions  from  the  East  — 
Mithraism,  for  instance  —  found  nu 
merous  followers.  In  such  a  soil 
Christianity  could  not  but  grow  vigor 
ously.  The  Roman  world  resembled 
us,  indeed,  only  in  the  sudden  in 
crease  of  material  prosperity.  The 
newness  of  conditions  is  far  more 
general  with  us  than  it  was  with  them. 
Yet  here,  too,  what  a  hold  has  been 
taken  by  Spiritualism,  by  Christian 
Science,  by  the  mystical  philosophies 
of  India,  even  where  they  are  only 
half,  if  at  all,  understood ! 

When  the  American  is  possessed 
by  the  Idea,  he  is  possessed  by  it 
thoroughly;  not  with  a  Celtic  unrea 
son,  but  with  an  enthusiasm  that 


44       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

seems  quite  out  of  harmony  with  his 
ordinary  half-sceptical  self,  and  that 
goes  great  lengths.  The  most  inter 
esting  point  in  the  history  of  Ameri 
can  thought  is  the  transcendental 
movement  of  the  first  half  of  this  cen 
tury,  which  was  idealism  incarnate. 
Practically,  it  showed  itself  in  that 
curious  experiment,  Brook  Farm, 
which  was  an  attempt  to  realize  what 
has  been  in  one  form  or  another  the 
social  Utopia  of  all  idealists;  an 
attempt  to  overcome  the  biting  stress 
of  individualism,  to  "pool,"  as  the 
railroad  men  say,  the  interests  of  all 
humanity;  an  attempt  —  which  failed. 
What  was  far  more  serious,  and  what 
did  not  fail,  was  the  great  antislavery 
movement,  as  truly  a  result  of  ideal 
ism  here  as  was  the  French  Revolu 
tion  in  Europe,  and  managed  in  a  far 
purer  spirit.  It  has  been  argued,  to 


THE   AMERICAN    IDEALIST.  45 

be  sure,  that  the  English  got  rid  of 
slavery  with  less  idealism,  but  without 
bloodshed.  The  cases  were,  however, 
very  different. 

The  list  of  great  names  connected 
with  all  these  movements  is  not  a 
short  one.  Active  in  the  antislavery 
agitation,  we  have  Garrison,  Phillips, 
Sumner.  More  especially  connected 
with  transcendentalism,  we  have  the 
group  that  centred  in  Concord:  Al- 
cott,  about  whom  critical  judgments 
differ  most;  Margaret  Fuller,  pathetic 
in  her  actual  fate  without  any  addition 
of  romance;  Thoreau,  robust,  self- 
asserting,  not  to  say  egotistical,  — 
more  arrogant  than  some  of  his  com 
rades,  but  touched  with  a  fine  and 
peculiar  genius  most  nearly  allied  to 
the  greatest  of  them  all.  Lastly,  ris 
ing  with  his  whole  figure  above  these, 
who  are  only  grouped  about  the  pedes- 


46       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

tal  upon  which  he  stands,  comes  the 
representative  American  idealist,  — 
one  may  almost  say  the  representative 
idealist  of  all  times  and  nations;  the 
man  who  came  nearest  to  uniting  the 
high  enthusiasm  of  the  saint  with 
the  calm  vision  of  the  seer,  who 
touched  with  a  holy  fire  the  specula 
tions  of  Plato  and  Hegel,  who  blended 
the  philosophy  of  Germany  with  the 
mysticism  of  Asia;  the  man  who,  for 
the  first  time  in  nineteen  centuries, 
owned  the  all-importance  of  religion, 
and  yet  looked  forward,  and  not  back, 
—  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  No  doubt 
the  Puritan  lack  of  imagination  does 
make  itself  felt  in  Emerson,  at  times 
almost  repulsively;  no  doubt  minds 
of  another  type  do  and  must  weary  of 
his  eternal  optimism;  but  never  was 
there  a  truer  servant  of  the  Idea  than 
he;  never  has  the  high  enthusiasm  of 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  47 

that  service  been  better  voiced  than  it 
so  often  was  by  him. 

"The  soul  is  not  a  compensation, 
but  a  life.  The  soul  is.  Under  all 
this  running  sea  of  circumstance, 
whose  waters  ebb  and  flow  with  per 
fect  balance,  lies  the  aboriginal  abyss 
of  real  Being.  .  .  .  Nothing,  False 
hood,  may  indeed  stand  as  the  great 
night  or  shade  on  which,  as  a  back 
ground,  the  living  universe  paints 
itself  forth,  but  no  fact  is  begotten  by 
it;  it  cannot  work,  for  it  is  not;  it 
cannot  work  any  harm;  it  cannot  work 
any  good.  It  is  harm  inasmuch  as  it 
is  worse  not  to  be  than  to  be. 

"  In  a  virtuous  action  I  properly 
am;  in  a  virtuous  act  I  add  to  the 
world;  I  plant  into  deserts  conquered 
from  Chaos  and  Nothing,  and  see  the 
darkness  receding  on  the  limits  of  the 
horizon.  There  can  be  no  excess  to 


48       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

love,  none  to  knowledge,  none  to 
beauty,  when  these  attributes  are  con 
sidered  in  the  purest  sense.  The  soul 
refuses  limits,  and  always  affirms  an 
optimism,  never  a  pessimism." 

Essay  after  essay  is  but  one  con 
tinuous  joyous  proclamation  of  the 
permanence,  the  inexhaustible  vital 
ity,  of  the  Idea. 

As  was  natural,  this  vigorous  and 
potent  personality  influenced  a  great 
number  of  people.  Many  of  them 
sought  an  expression  for  their  enthu 
siasm  in  literature,  —  some  success 
fully,  the  majority  not  so.  But  there 
were  others  who  were  contented  to 
live  quietly  in  the  calm  and  pure 
light  of  their  high  faith,  making  no 
attempt  to  communicate  it,  unless 
indirectly  by  a  certain  spiritual  atmos 
phere  that  constantly  surrounded 
them.  One  such  I  have  in  mind:  a 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  49 

man  who  was  for  many  years,  for  life 
almost,  an  intimate  friend  of  Emer 
son's;  who  had  imbibed  his  spirit 
thoroughly,  yet  united  with  it  a  pecu 
liar  gentleness  and  sweetness  all  his 
own.  His  nature  was  feminine  in 
its  delicacy,  subtly  sensitive  to  all 
impressions,  —  morbid  in  some  ways, 
unquestionably.  He  was  at  times  the 
slave  of  a  conscientiousness  that  ruled 
him  tyrannically,  exposing  him  to  ridi 
cule  from  those  who  did  not  under 
stand;  but  the  fine  purity  of  his 
character,  his  imaginative  sympathy, 
his  infinite  patience,  tolerance,  readi 
ness  to  find  excuses  even  for  those  he 
disapproved  of,  his  loyalty  and  devo 
tion  to  the  people  and  the  ideas  he 
loved,  above  all  his  supreme  unworld- 
liness  and  indomitable  conviction  of 
the  truth,  —  when  shall  we  look  upon 
his  like  again? 


50       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

The  men  of  that  generation  have 
passed  away.  Have  their  enthusiasms 
vanished  with  them?  I  do  not  believe 
it.  Material  prosperity  has  lured  us 
all  more  or  less  from  the  things  of  the 
spirit.  The  high  light  of  thought  and 
devotion  seems  obscured  by  the  mist 
of  lower  passions,  sordid  rivalries, 
eager  greed.  But,  as  a  people,  we 
are  not  —  as  yet  we  are  not  —  cor 
rupted  or  decadent.  We  are  ever  on 
the  watch  for  what  points  upward, 
full  of  generous  impulses,  ready  sym 
pathies.  Above  all,  we  are  hopeful; 
we  look  forward.  We  feel  in  a  man 
ner  bound  to  grow  to  the  great  desti 
nies  of  a  great  country.  All  sorts  of 
speculative  opinions  find  a  ready 
acceptance.  I  have  alluded  to  Chris 
tian  Science,  and  the  fascination  exer 
cised  by  half-mystical  theories  about 
new  discoveries  in  the  nature  of 


THE   AMERICAN   IDEALIST.  5! 

mind.     Politically,  the  idealistic  ten 
dency    shows    itself    in    the    projects 
of  the  Nationalists,  the  followers  of 
George  and  Bellamy.     It  shows  itself 
also  in  agitations  for  woman's  rights 
and  objects  of  that  nature.     Indeed, 
it  may  be  said,   in  passing,   that  the  \ 
most  typical   American   idealist  is  a    \ 
woman;  idealism,  with  its  merits  and    I 
defects,  being  more  natural  to  women  / 
than  to  men. 

No,  from  whatever  source  derived, 
whether  it  be  a  reflection  of  Divinity 
in  the  human  heart,  or  a  mere  figment 
of  the  imagination  projected  on  the 
realm  of  "Chaos  and  old  Night,"  the 
Idea  can  never  die,  never  lose  its  in 
fluence  over  mankind,  never  cease  to 
be  the  mainspring  of  all  that  is  ac 
complished  in  the  world,  of  all  prog 
ress,  of  all  virtue,  of  all  happiness. 
It  clothes  itself  in  many  forms.  It 


52       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

puts  on  and  casts  off  religions  and 
philosophies  like  worn  and  faded  gar 
ments.  All  these  change,  but  the 
Idea  remains  the  same.  Something 
outside,  something  beyond,  something 
larger  than  itself,  humanity  must  have 
to  strive  for,  to  hope  for.  It  would 
be  useless  to  oppose  this  tendency, 
even  if  it  were  desirable.  The  pessi 
mist  will  revile  it,  cherishing  it  all 
the  while  more  than  any  one  else. 
The  critic  will  find  in  it  an  ever- 
changing  and  infinitely  curious  object 
of  study.  The  wise  statesman  will 
seek  to  guide  it  and  profit  by  it.  But 
he  who  is  a  born  idealist  himself  will 
see  in  its  vitality  its  justification.  He 
will  bow  down  with  his  whole  heart 
and  soul  in  infinite  worship  before  the 
unchanged,  immortal  spirit  of  virtue, 
loveliness,  and  truth,  which,  under 
neath  the  shifting  illusion  of  the  world, 
is  all  that  is  firm,  all  that  is  abiding. 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN. 

DISTINCTION  is  the  mightiest 
implement  of  the  wise,  and  the 
plaything  of  the  idle.  Allow  me  to 
amuse  myself  with  it  for  a  moment. 
An  Epicurean  is  one  who  enjoys  life, 
who  lives,  so  far  as  possible,  by  and 
for  enjoyment,  and  who  at  the  same 
time  analyzes  his  pleasure  and  philos 
ophizes  about  it  after  his  own  fashion. 
Epicurean  and  materialist  are  often 
confounded;  but  the  materialist  is  sim 
ply  absorbed  in  what  is  external  and 
material.  He  does  not  philosophize 
about  it ;  he  does  not  even  always  en 
joy  it.  He  may  be  bound  down  and 
tyrannized  over  by  it,  so  that  he  hates 
53 


54       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

it,  but  cannot  escape  from  it,  like  some 
men  of  business,  or  even  some  phil 
anthropists  ;  for  I  have  known  philan 
thropic  materialists,  but  never  a 
philanthropic  Epicurean.  Nor  are  Ep 
icureanism  and  paganism  identical. 
Here,  too,  there  is  the  difference  of 
underlying  analysis  and  thought,  which 
makes,  as  it  were,  the  lining  of  the  Ep 
icurean's  pleasure,  and  gives  it  a  sort 
of  bitter-sweet  of  its  own.  He  observes 
and  studies  himself  even  in  the  midst 
of  the  keenest  delight.  The  pagan,  on 
the  other  hand,  enjoys  without  obser 
vation  or  analysis.  He  has  the  frank, 
free  gaiety  of  the  fauns  of  Rubens,  who 
pass  unremittingly  from  sleep  to  laugh 
ter,  and  from  laughter  to  sleep,  if,  in 
deed,  they  sleep  at  all. 

It  is  a  notable,  though  perhaps  not 
wholly  enviable,  title  to  reputation  to 
have  given  one's  name  to  a  sect  like 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  55 

this  ;  and  it  is  to  be  wished  that  we 
knew  something  more  definite  of  the 
life  and  doctrines  of  Epicurus,  which 
have  come  to  us  only  through  the  dis 
torting  media  of  his  disciples'  writings. 
We  have,  however,  every  reason  to 
believe  that  he  was  a  gentle  and  toler 
ant  man,  which  is  an  excellent  thing  in 
a  philosopher,  and  for  my  part  I  am 
happy  to  accept  the  portrait  given  us 
in  Lander's  celebrated  dialogue,  where 
we  find,  indeed,  certain  amiable  weak 
nesses,  but  altogether  outweighed  by 
attractiveness  and  charm. 

When  we  pass  to  Epicurus'  greatest 
disciple,  what  a  difference  !  And  how 
little  we  find  in  the  De  Rerum  Natura 
those  qualities  which  we  associate  *with 
the  Master,  and  still  more  with  the 
name  Epicurean  in  modern  times.  Is 
it  probable  that  Lucretius  ever  en 
joyed  himself  in  the  mild  sense  in 


56       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

which  the  word  is  used  by  ordinary 
mortals  ?  Perhaps  he  knew  the  fierce 
delight  of  struggling  with  great  mental 
problems,  of  toiling  up  vast  slopes  of 
argument  from  the  summit  of  which, 
when  one  has  reached  it,  one  beholds 
nothing  but  barrenness  and  death,  of 
moulding  and  straining  a  hard  language 
into  magical  harmonies  and  long  waves 
of  echoing  sound.  But  Epicurean  — 
where  is  the  softness,  where  the  grace, 
where  the  roses  and  the  smiles?  Lu 
cretius  rushes  at  pleasure,  battles  with 
it,  crushes  it,  kills  himself  in  seeking 
to  possess  it.  Some  of  us  do  that 
to-day,  but  we  are  not  called  Epi 
cureans. 

Bat  there  is  a  classical  representative 
of  the  habits,  if  not  always  of  the  doc 
trines,  of  Epicurus,  who  harmonizes 
much  better  with  our  preconceived 
ideas  on  the  subject;  I  mean,  of 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  57 

course,  Horace.  It  is  a  pity  that 
Horace  is  out  of  fashion  just  now. 
When  we  read  Latin  at  all,  we  read 
Catullus  and  Lucretius,  which  is  well. 
But  perhaps  Virgil  and  Horace  will 
some  day  come  in  again,  without  the 
others  going  out.  No  one  claims  for 
Horace  the  lyrical  passion  of  Catullus ; 
but  he  has  lyrical  qualities  of  his  own, 
flawless  grace,  a  perfect  hold  on  his 
subject,  a  style  perhaps  more  subtly 
and  delicately  intellectual  than  that  of 
any  other  writer,  unless  it  be  Petrarch. 
Above  all,  he  had  precisely  the  Epi 
curean  quality  we  are  speaking  of,  of 
taking  all  the  pleasures  of  life,  great 
and  small,  as  they  came  within  his 
reach,  and  at  the  same  time  that  he 
enjoyed  them  with  the  keenest  zest,  of 
reflecting  on  them,  classifying  them, 
appreciating,  too,  their  fleetingness, 
and  emptiness,  and  vainness,  if  only 


58       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

there  were  anything  better  to  replace 
them.  What  profound  wisdom  he  has 
with  what  endless  tolerance  and  sym 
pathy  !  He  does  not  rant  and  tear  a 
passion  to  tatters,  unless,  alas,  when 
hired  to  write  conventional  morality 
by  the  powers  that  be  ;  and  even  then 
you  feel  that  he  sings  a  little  after  the 
fashion  of  Dodor  in  Trilby,  when  enter 
taining  his  inamorata  with  psalmodic 
selections. 

We  shall  hardly,  I  imagine,  find 
much  Epicureanism  in  the  Europe  of 
the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages.  Material 
ism  and  brutal  paganism,  brutality  even 
beyond  paganism,  of  course,  abound. 
We  shall  see  enough  of  the  love  of 
pleasure,  but  very  little  of  philosophy  ; 
unless  we  imagine  to  ourselves  hidden 
away  in  the  dim  corner  of  a  mediaeval 
monastery  some  friar  of  orders  gray, 
who  has  fled  thither  as  to  a  quiet 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  59 

refuge  from  a  turbulent  and  barbarous 
world,  who  passes  his  days  in  reading 
the  classics,  with  a  flask  of  red  wine 
and  a  flask  of  white,  a  pretty  niece, 
and  a  gentle  smile  at  the  follies  and 
vagaries  of  mankind. 

When  we  come  to  the  Renaissance, 
on  the  other  hand,  we  shall  find  Epi 
cureanism  in  its  fullest  flower.  Even 
here  we  must  distinguish  it  from 
paganism ;  for  the  great  characteristic 
of  the  Renaissance  is  chiefly  a  wild 
rush  for  the  delights  of  life  so  long 
obscured  and  hid  away.  Every  one 
thrust  in  for  his  share,  and  the  com 
mon  herd  then,  as  always,  did  not 
examine  nor  inquire  into  the  nature  of 
its  deeds.  But  the  fifteenth  and  six 
teenth  centuries  were  peculiarly  a  time 
when  men  of  intellectual  power  plunged 
into  every  kind  of  extravagance  and 
excess,  and  then  they  all,  more  or  less, 


60       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

in  the  true  meaning  of  reflection,  turned 
to  look  back  upon  themselves.  Chief 
among  these  stands  Montaigne.  We 
know  Montaigne  as  a  sceptic.  It  is 
the  name  under  which  Emerson  has 
treated  him,  and  doubtless  represents 
accurately  a  part  of  his  mental  attitude. 
But  Epicurean  suits  him  better  still. 
Epicureanism  does,  indeed,  presuppose 
a  certain  amount  of  theoretical  scepti 
cism  ;  but  the  typical  sceptic,  even  if 
he  is  not  a  professional  philosopher 
like  Pyrrho,  is  surely  much  more 
philosophical  than  Montaigne.  Scep 
ticism  implies  constant  and  consistent 
thought,  a  contact  with  the  great 
problems  of  life,  which  is  too  apt  to 
bring  a  pale  brow  and  an  anxious  eye. 
The  rich,  rubicund  nature  of  Mon 
taigne  and  Horace  has  nothing  more 
akin  to  philosophical  scepticism  than 
a  good-natured  mistrust  of  dogmas 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  6 1 

whether  one's  own  or  other  people's, 
and  a  fancy  for  amusing  oneself  at  the 
fireside  by  stripping  the  idols  both  of 
cave  and  market-place  down  to  a  bare 
skeleton  of  nothing.  But  that  keen  ob 
servation  of  human  life  coupled  with  an 
endless  delight  in  it,  which  is  the  charm 
of  Horace,  reappears  in  Montaigne, 
free  from  any  trammels  of  poetical 
form,  abundant,  varied,  lighted  up  with 
infinite  humour,  illustrated  by  bound 
less  learning,  now  playing  wantonly  on 
the  surface  of  common  needs,  now 
plunging  down  into  the  deep  recesses 
of  wayward  passions,  but  always  smiling, 
always  serene,  always  tolerant,  always 
free  from  conventional  prejudice. 

The  nearest  English  equivalent  of 
Montaigne  is  Robert  Burton  of  the 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy.  That  won 
derful  book,  bristling  with  quotation 
and  illustration,  is  an  epitome  of  the 


62       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Renaissance  in  many  ways.  At  the 
same  time  Burton's  description,  depic 
tion  of  the  pleasures  of  life,  is  not,  like 
Montaigne's,  that  of  a  man  who  has 
touched  and  tasted ;  it  is  that  of  a 
scholar  and  something  of  a  pedant, 
who  eyes  the  promised  land  wistfully 
from  without,  who  listens  eagerly  to  the 
enthusiasm  of  others,  and  very  much 
exaggerates  in  imagination  the  possibil 
ities  of  what  he  might  enjoy,  but  him 
self  never  quite  dares  enter.  Nor  is 
Burton  singular  in  this.  Epicureanism 
is  not  thoroughly  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
taste.  The  English  life  may  have  its 
period  of  brutal  and  unthinking  self- 
indulgence,  but  there  comes  a  moral 
reaction  from  the  ever-present  Philis 
tine  within  us,  of  which  the  grandest 
example  is  the  respectable  old  age  of 
Shakspere  as  a  worthy,  harmless,  re 
vered,  and  thrifty  burgess  of  Stratford. 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  63 

In  this  rapid  survey  we  can  touch 
only  the  summits.  If  we  pass  over 
the  seventeenth  century  with  its  group 
of  men  of  letters,  of  whom  so  many, 
in  France  at  any  rate,  deserve  the  title 
of  Epicurean,  we  shall  find  in  the 
eighteenth  much  less  tendency  in  this 
direction.  Voltaire,  though  he  had  no 
dislike  for  the  pleasant  side  of  life, 
seems  too  petulant,  too  narrow,  too 
dry  for  the  true  Epicurean  spirit. 
Rousseau  and  those  who  followed  in 
his  wake  were  enthusiasts,  and  there  is 
no  such  deadly  enemy  of  enthusiasm 
as  the  Epicurean.  You  may  be  a  fa 
natic  for  good  or  evil,  you  may  preach 
salvation  or  destruction,  you  may  rave 
over  optimism  or  pessimism,  and  the 
Epicurean  will  smile  at  you,  not  with 
the  bitter  mockery  of  Voltaire,  but 
with  a  patronizing  expression,  as  who 
should  say :  "  My  dear  Sir,  how  soon 


64       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

all  this  will  boil  over  into  the  cool  dust 
of  the  grave." 

At  the  threshold  of  the  nineteenth 
century  we  meet  with  Goethe,  and  it 
would  be  curious  to  examine  why  we 
can  set  him  down  so  definitely  as  un- 
Epicurean.  He  is  not  a  Christian, 
surely,  he  whom  Heine  called  the  great 
pagan  of  the  century.  Yet  as  surely 
we  cannot  call  him  pagan  as  we  call 
Ariosto  pagan  or  Boccaccio.  Is  there, 
perhaps,  after  all  in  Goethe  a  little 
touch  of  the  pedant?  Or  had  he,  too, 
his  enthusiasm,  that  of  the  artist,  burn 
ing  in  him  as  a  clear  and  constant 
flame,  rather  than  as  the  devouring 
fire  which  ate  away  the  hearts  of  Flau 
bert  and  Leopardi  ? 

But,  so  far  as  literature  is  concerned, 
we  shall  find  our  most  interesting  ex 
amples  of  the  modern  Epicurean  in 
contemporary  France.  Perhaps  it 


THE  AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  65 

would  not  be  wholly  fair  to  apply  the 
name  to  Sainte-Beuve.  If  not,  it 
would  be  because  he  laboured  with  an 
earnestness  almost  amounting  to  en 
thusiasm  at  the  art  which  he  had 
chosen.  Yet  his  general  way  of  look 
ing  at  life  comes  perilously  near  that 
of  some  authors  we  have  been  con 
sidering,  especially  when  we  take  into 
account  not  only  his  formal  criticism, 
but  his  detached  thoughts  and  the 
record  of  him  that  has  come  to  us 
through  his  friends.  He  himself  tells 
us  that  he  arrived  at  wisdom,  not  by 
the  road  of  Spinoza  and  Hegel,  but 
by  that  of  Solomon  and  Epicurus, 
something,  I  suppose,  like  the  broad- 
gated  way  that  leadeth  to  other  things 
besides  wisdom.  Among  the  critics 
who  have  succeeded  Sainte-Beuve  we 
might  look  even  more  successfully  for 
men  who  illustrate  precisely  what  I 


66       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

mean  by  the  modern  Epicurean.  But 
the  best  example  of  all  is  the  great 
writer  whom  France  has  recently  lost, 
Ernest  Renan.  If  we  compare  Renan 
with  Montaigne,  we  shall  get  all  the 
difference  between  the  nineteenth  and 
the  sixteenth  century,  difference  in 
manners,  difference  in  traditional  mor 
als,  difference  in  intellectual  pursuits. 
It  is  quite  impossible  to  imagine  Mon 
taigne  finding  his  pleasure  in  the  ac 
quisition  of  a  profound  knowledge  of 
Hebrew,  or  the  study  of  the  Semitic 
peoples.  It  is  impossible  to  imagine 
Montaigne  in  a  dusty  class-room,  lec 
turing  spectacled  to  a  small  assembly 
of  pedantic  students,  to  imagine  Mon 
taigne  a  professor.  But  down  under 
neath  the  superficial  difference  we 
come  to  the  Epicurean  basis  common 
to  both ;  the  complete  disregard  of  a 
formalized  system  of  philosophy,  the 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  67 

endless  delight  in  the  play  of  humanity 
and  life,  the  universal  toleration  and 
indulgence  for  the  enthusiasms  and  the 
follies  of  others.  And  it  is  perfectly 
conceivable  that  if  Montaigne  had  lived 
three  hundred  years  later  he  would 
have  come  to  see  how  merely  barbar 
ous  were  all  his  pursuits,  beside  the 
exquisite  pleasure  of  baffling  the  Philis 
tine  journalist  with  touches  of  irony 
finer  and  subtler  than  that  of  Aris 
tophanes  or  Heine. 

Now  let  us  cross  the  Atlantic  in 
pursuit  of  our  Epicurean  of  America. 
If  we  confound  Epicureanism  with  ma 
terialism  or  paganism,  we  shall  find 
it  scattered  broadcast  in  this  beloved 
country  of  ours.  I  suppose  we  must 
look  upon  business  as  one  of  the  forms 
of  materialism,  though  naturally  one 
may  engage  in  it  without  being  ma 
terialized.  And  if  I  wished  to  draw 


68       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

the  most  universal  and  most  truly 
American  type  possible,  I  should  begin 
with  the  Man  of  Business.  We  see 
him  everywhere,  do  we  not,  and  every 
where  substantially  the  same  ?  To  be 
sure,  in  Boston,  he  generally  speaks 
good  English  and  may  be  a  college 
graduate  ;  in  the  Far  West  he  is  apt  to 
be  rough  in  manner  and  of  cosmopol 
itan  extraction ;  in  Chicago  he  is  over 
flowing  with  a  joyous  confidence  in  the 
city  of  his  choice  ;  in  the  South  he  has 
a  certain  dignified  slowness,  a  pride  of 
caste,  whatever  be  his  occupation,  and  a 
rooted  hatred  of  "  niggers  "  ;  and  every 
where  he  has  one  great  tie  of  common 
humanity,  —  business.  See  him  on  a 
street-corner  waiting  for  a  car,  ab 
sorbed  as  Archimedes.  Does  he  look 
at  sun,  moon,  and  stars  ?  His  eyes  are 
turned  within.  He  sees  nothing  but 
pools  and  combinations,  stocks,  bonds, 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  69 

mortgages,  bulls,  bears,  corners,  shorts, 
margins.  His  face  is  wire-drawn,  anx 
ious,  does  not  respond  to  yours  unless 
he  sees  business  in  your  eye.  Fortu 
nate,  if  he  can  go  home  to  his  slippers 
and  paper,  or  his  prayer-meeting,  and 
not  dream  all  night  of  what  has  filled 
his  thoughts  all  day.  So  far  as  the 
forgetting  of  all  Gods  but  Mammon 
goes,  this  gentleman  is  as  Epicurean  as 
Epicurus  -j  but  has  he  the  least  idea  of 
pleasure  in  any  sense  of  the  word? 
That  is  the  bitterest  irony  of  his  lot, 
that  he  accumulates  and  accumulates 
—  and  what  for  ?  The  little  delights  of 
life  are  spoiled  for  him  by  absorption 
in  business,  the  great  seem  mere  ex 
travagance  ;  and  truly  the  last  condi 
tion  of  that  man  is  worse  than  the 
first. 

Nor  can  there  be  any  question  about 
the  supply  of  paganism.     It  does  not, 


70       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

indeed,  run  riot  in  the  streets.  The 
flaunting  worship  of  the  older  gods  and 
the  wild  revelry  of  Dionysus  have  given 
place  to  labour- manifestations  and  the 
parades  of  the  Salvation  Army.  This 
incapacity  for  pleasure  that  I  have  just 
referred  to  hinders  many  a  pagan  from 
following  out  the  desire  of  his  heart 
which  frames  itself  instinctively  in  the 
old  burden :  Eat,  drink,  and  be  merry, 
for  to-morrow  we  die.  Yet  the  spirit 
of  the  decaying  pagan  world  is  every 
where.  We  cling  with  voluptuous  terror 
to  the  delights  of  this  life,  not  knowing 
what  may  come  after  in  the  dark  gulf 
which  science  points  out  before  us.  And 
this  paganism  is  found,  perhaps,  less  in 
the  middle  class,  where  inherited  con 
ventions  have  a  stronger  hold ;  less  in 
New  England,  where  life  is  built  on  a 
more  artificial  model.  It  is  the  vast 
lower  stratum,  which  in  this  country  is 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  Jl 

always  pressing  upward,  the  half- edu 
cated  multitude  suddenly  let  loose  from 
the  bonds  and  trammels  of  an  older 
civilization,  conscious  of  new  life,  of 
new  strength,  and  at  the  same  time 
touched  by  no  religion,  by  no  care  or 
thought  for  morals  or  for  love  —  it  is 
this  vast,  disorderly  mob  which  is  essen 
tially  pagan,  and  which  never  having 
tasted  the  pleasures  of  this  world,  knows 
not  their  vanity,  and  labours  passion 
ately  to  possess  itself  of  them.  This  is 
not  the  paganism  of  the  rich  and  idle, 
but  the  terrible,  hungry  paganism  of 
the  poor,  raging  like  fierce  beasts  of 
prey.  Communism  is  paganism,  anar 
chism  is  paganism,  latent  paganism, 
threatening  to  dissolve  society  in  a  mist 
of  blood  and  tears. 

But  we  do  not  forget  that  our  Epicu 
rean  is  neither  materialist  nor  pagan. 
He  loves  money  as  the  means  of  pro- 


72       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

curing  almost  everything  in  this  world. 
He  loves  pleasure  in  every  form  and 
pursues  it  with  the  keenest  zest,  but  a 
large  part  of  his  pleasure  consists  in 
contemplation,  and  his  training  has 
generally  been  such  that  everything 
brutal  is  revolting  to  him.  It  is  just 
here  that  we  come  across  the  peculiar 
ity  of  the  American  type.  For  what 
distinguishes  American  Epicureanism, 
as  well  as  many  other  American  varie 
ties,  is  the  combination  of  vast  scepti 
cism  with  a  strong  habit  of  inherited 
morality,  not  to  say  religion.  Are  we 
not,  indeed,  as  a  nation  a  rather  curious 
spectacle  of  strong  moral  principles 
which  go  back  for  their  origin  two  or 
three  hundred  years,  crusted  about  a 
body  of  theoretical  or  practical  agnos 
ticism  with  which  they  have  nothing  to 
do  ?  Are  not  our  churches  apologetic, 
our  creeds  hidden  with  a  cloud  of  ex- 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  73 

planation  ?  Are  not  our  priests  largely 
occupied  with  the  attempt  to  show 
that  our  fathers  did  not  believe  what 
every  one  knows  they  did  believe,  though 
we  do  not  ?  At  any  rate,  the  American 
Epicurean  believes  very  little  indeed, 
though  he  has  no  desire  to  parade  his 
unbelief,  partly  because  it  would  result 
in  his  own  discomfort,  and  partly  be 
cause  he  may  come  to  believe  a  good 
many  things  some  day.  At  the  same 
time  he  has  a  habit  of  morals  which 
restrains  him  usually  from  any  gross 
fault,  —  indiscretion,  he  would  call  it. 
He  looks  upon  a  thief  very  much  as 
he  looks  upon  a  dog  who  steals  a  bone 
from  another  clog,  yet  he  feels  the  most 
uncomfortable  qualms  of  conscience 
if  he  forgets  to  return  a  borrowed 
umbrella.  His  theories  of  pleasure  and 
of  virtue  are  those  of  a  joyous  and 
Falstaffian  debauchee ;  but  his  air  and 


74       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

manner  are  sometimes  hard  to  dis 
tinguish  from  those  of  a  professor  or 
even  of  a  saint.  He  looks  with  a  mild 
and  contemptuous  indifference  on  all 
forms  of  government  and  political  ques 
tions  ;  yet  he  is  oftentimes  a  useful  and 
occasionally  an  active  citizen,  in  the 
spirit  of  a  French  writer's  excellent 
paradox,  //  n'y  a  que  le  sceptique  pour 
etre  honnete  homme  et  bon  citoyen.  In 
short,  it  is  because  he  is  made  up  of  so 
many  contrasts  that  he  is  so  interesting. 
But,  you  ask,  where  does  the  Epicu 
reanism  come  in  ?  It  is  easy  to  under 
stand  the  scepticism  of  the  man  you  are 
describing,  but  where  are  his  pleasures  ? 
Has  he  really  more  of  them  than  the 
man  of  business  ?  Is  not  he,  too,  anx 
ious,  care-worn,  incapacitated  for  enter 
ing  into  the  sweet  of  life  ?  Doubtless, 
to  a  certain  extent,  he  is.  His  enjoy 
ment  is  very  largely  a  matter  of  theory 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  75 

instead  of  practice.  Nor  is  it  wholly 
on  moral  grounds  that  he  flees  far  away 
from  the  disorders  and  tempestuous  pas 
sions  of  a  worldly  life.  He  remembers, 
alas,  he  is  too  often  reminded  of  that 
sentence  of  Anatole  France,  which  may 
serve  as  a  motto  for  so  many  Epicu 
reans  of  to-day  :  "Je  riai  qu'un  seul 
plaisir  et  je  conviens  qdil  rfest  pas 
vif,  c'est  la  meditation:  avec  un  mau- 
vais  estomac  il  den  faut  pas  chercher 
d'autres"  Yes,  the  American  Epicu 
rean  must,  and  does  for  the  most  part, 
content  himself  with  the  pleasures  of 
meditation :  and  perhaps  they  are,  after 
all,  not  so  much  inferior  to  others ; 
they  are  certainly  more  enduring. 
There  is  the  delight  of  beauty,  even 
if  one  cannot  create  it  for  oneself,  the 
plastic  arts,  music,  poetry.  There  is 
the  witchery  of  nature,  always  at  hand, 
always  varied.  Above  all,  there  is  the 


76       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

vast  and  shifting  scene  of  human  life. 
As  it  was  expressed  for  us  three  hun 
dred  years  ago  :  "  A  mere  spectator  of 
other  men's  fortunes  and  adventures, 
and  how  they  act  their  parts,  which,  me- 
thinks,  are  diversely  presented  unto  me 
as  from  a  common  theatre  or  scene.  I 
hear  new  news  every  day,  and  those 
ordinary  rumors  of  war,  plagues,  fires, 
inundations,  thefts,  murders,  massacres, 
meteors,  comets,  spectrums,  prodigies, 
apparitions,  of  towns  taken,  cities  be 
sieged  in  France,  Germany,  Turkey,  Per 
sia,  Poland,  etc.,  daily  musters  and  prep 
arations  and  such  like,  which  these  tem 
pestuous  times  afford;  battles  fought, 
so  many  men  slain,  monomachies,  ship 
wrecks,  piracies,  and  sea-fights,  peace, 
leagues,  stratagems,  and  fresh  alarms. 
.  .  .  New  books  every  day,  pamphlets, 
currantoes,  stories,  whole  catalogues  of 
volumes  of  all  sorts,  new  paradoxes, 


THE  AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  77 

opinions,  schisms,  heresies,  contro 
versies  in  philosophy,  religion,  etc. 
Now  come  tidings  of  weddings,  mask- 
ings,  mummeries,  entertainments,  jubi 
lees,  embassies,  tilts  and  tournaments, 
trophies,  triumphs,  revels,  sports,  plays  ; 
then  again,  as  in  a  new  shifted  scene, 
treasons,  cheating  tricks,  robberies, 
enormous  villainies  in  all  kinds,  funer 
als,  burials,  deaths  of  princes,  new  dis 
coveries,  expeditions ;  now  comical, 
now  tragical  matters.  To-day  we  hear 
of  new  lords  and  officers  created,  to 
morrow  of  some  great  men  deposed, 
and  then  again  of  fresh  honours  con 
ferred  ;  one  is  let  loose,  another  im 
prisoned  ;  one  purchaseth,  another 
breaketh ;  he  thrives,  his  neighbour 
turns  bankrupt ;  now  plenty,  then 
again  dearth  and  famine ;  one  runs, 
another  rides,  wrangles,  laughs,  weeps, 
etc.  Thus  I  daily  hear  and  such  like, 


78       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

both  private  and  public  news.  Amidst 
the  gallantry  and  misery  of  the  world  : 
jollity,  pride,  perplexities  and  cares, 
simplicity  and  villainy ;  subtlety,  knav 
ery,  candour,  and  integrity,  mutually 
mixed  and  offering  themselves,  I  rub 
on,  privus  privatus."  These  are  the 
words  of  an  intellectual  Epicurean  of  a 
former  age.  But  I  am  going  to  repeat 
to  you  what  was  said  to  me  in  confi 
dence  the  other  day  by  a  friend,  who  is 
an  American  Epicurean,  and  who,  being 
somewhat  older  than  I,  conceives  that 
he  is  privileged  to  lay  down  the  law  for 
my  benefit. 

"  My  dear  Sir,"  he  said,  "  I  have  no 
desire  to  preach  to  you,  for  I  am  too 
inconsistent  and  wandering  to  have  a 
pretentious  philosophy;  but  if  you  like 
to  profit  by  my  experience,  you  may. 
When  I  was  your  age,  indeed,  from  the 
time  I  began  to  think  much  about  any- 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  79 

thing,  I  had  vast  literary  enthusiasms, 
immense  ambition;  I  adored  beauty 
with  the  idolatry  of  Keats,  I  consecrated 
myself  to  the  service  of  letters  with  the 
passion  of  Flaubert,  I  was  going  to 
write  immortal  works,  poems,  novels, 
criticism ;  I  lived,  in  short,  in  a  sort 
of  delirium.  As  a  result  of  this,  all 
the  ordinary  pleasures  of  life  became  a 
burden.  The  society  of  my  friends, 
the  little  distractions,  the  delightful 
nothings,  which  pass  away  idle  hours, 
were  only  stumbling-blocks  in  the  path 
of  my  aspiration.  I  had  so  much  to 
read,  so  much  to  write,  more  than  I 
could  ever  possibly  accomplish;  and 
all  that  tended  to  interfere  with  my 
work,  was  an  annoyance,  however 
charming  in  itself.  Well,  one  day  it 
came  over  me,  '  How  foolish  all  this 
is ;  will  any  reputation  or  success  ever 
satisfy  me?  shall  I  not  be  always  as 


So       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

far  from  the  goal  as  now ;  indeed,  am  I 
not  getting  farther  and  farther  from  it, 
since  every  book  I  read  and  every  page 
I  write,  opens  the  possibilities  of  read 
ing  and  study  infinitely  wider  than  they 
were  before  ?  And  this  might  not  be  so 
bad  if  I  had  hopes  of  an  endless  fu 
ture,  of  possibilities  of  accomplishing 
and  perfecting  in  afiother  world  what  I 
must  leave  imperfect  here.  But  with 
no  such  hope  I  am  wasting  the  sweet 
of  life  for  nothing,  toiling  and  labouring 
to  a  barren  and  unprofitable  end.'  You 
will  easily  understand  that  I  did  not 
begin  to  cry  out  in  this  fashion  until 
I  found  that  the  grapes  hung  too  high 
for  me,  that  I  had  not  the  health,  or 
the  courage,  or  the  genius  to  succeed. 

"  Then  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  had 
had  enough  of  it,  that  I  would  tamper 
no  further  with  vain  hopes  and  futile 
ambitions,  that  I  would  no  longer  live 


THE  AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  8 1 

in  a  prison-house  of  dull  abstraction, 
with  nerves  exasperated  and  brain  out 
worn,  simply  to  pursue  an  unattainable 
and  vanishing  ideal.  I  would  live  on 
the  good,  solid,  dusty  earth  and  ask  no 
more.  And  here  comes  in  the  value 
of  my  experience  for  you,  young  friend. 
For  no  sooner  had  I  taken  this  resolu 
tion,  no  sooner  had  I  abandoned  hun 
gry  labour,  fierce  aspiration,  the  vain 
struggle  of  impossible  desires,  when 
the  aspect  of  the  world  was  changed, 
as  if  by  enchantment.  I  who  had 
railed  before  at  the  monotony  and  bit 
terness  of  life,  who  had  proclaimed  my 
pessimism  from  the  housetops,  declar 
ing  that  the  world  was  stale  and  old, 
that  no  pretence  of  diversion  could 
relieve  the  tedium  of  the  gray  hours 
rolling  heavily  rivie  after  another,  I, 
the  prophet  of  ennui,  suddenly  dis 
covered  that  the  common  existence  of 


82       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

every  day  was  but  a  succession  of  little 
delights,  coming  often  so  thickly  that 
one  is  embarrassed  to  choose  among 
them.  Those  of  my  pursuits  and  oc 
cupations  which  had  before  seemed 
to  me  a  trivial  and  frivolous  waste  of 
time,  now  became  an  endless  source 
of  amusement  and  pleasure.  For 
merly,  when  a  friend  dropped  in  for 
an  hour's  chat,  I  was  haunted  by  the 
page  I  might  have  written,  I  fretted 
and  fumed  over  his  leisurely  depart 
ure.  Now  I  take  a  cigar  with  him 
and  a  glass  of  wine,  put  my  feet  on 
the  table,  and  babble  about  the  latest 
novel  and  the  taxes.  I  love  books  — 
as  did  Montaigne  —  on  the  shelves, 
and  with  the  delightful  feeling  that  I 
can  read  them  when  I  wish  to,  rarely 
reading  them.  I  us./,  to  think  cards 
a  squandering  of  human  life,  and  bil 
liards  a  device  of  the  devil  —  whom, 


THE  AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  83 

you  remember,  I  did  not  believe  in. 
Now  I  take  a  cue  or  a  hand  at  whist 
whenever  I  can  find  any  one  so  idle 
as  myself.  You,  my  friend,  who  know 
nothing  about  these  things  and  walk 
through  life  simply  blind,  as  I  did, 
cannot  realize  what  a  wealth  of  joy  — 
in  small  change  —  you  are  throwing 
away.  You  cannot  stop  to  look  at  a 
sunset,  because  you  must  write  a  son 
net  on  it.  I  thrust  my  hands  in  my 
pockets  and  gaze  till  the  last  glow  has 
fled  away  —  and  then  turn  to  amuse 
myself  with  something  else.  Like  the 
old  mystic, 

"  '  On  some  gilded  cloud  or  flower 
My  lingering  soul  would  dwell  an  hour. ' 

The  laughter  of  children,  what  old  Bur 
ton  found  so  amusing,  the  quarrelling 
of  bargemen,  the  nodding  of  a  blossom 
in  the  wind,  the  change  of  shadow  and 


84       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

sunlight,  the  singing  of  a  bird,  the  fall 
ing  of  a  star,  the  love  of  young  men 
and  the  folly  of  old  ones,  the  smiles 
and  tears  of  women,  fashions,  freaks, 
politics,  philanthropy,  temperance  and 
intemperance,  the  vanity  of  men's  seri 
ous  pursuits,  and  the  woful  seriousness 
of  their  vain  ones,  —  in  all  these  things 
there  is  infinite  matter  for  more  than 
a  May  morning,  if  only  one  is  not 
tortured  and  broken  by  preoccupa 
tions  and  cares  that  seal  one's  eyes 
with  lead. 

"And  the  beauty  of  these  lighter, 
slighter  pleasures  is,  that  they  are  not 
subject  to  disappointment.  In  this 
endless  round  of  small  delights  one 
does  not  look  forward  to  long,  one 
does  not  look  backward  to  compare. 
If  one  amusement  fails,  there  are  a 
thousand  others  at  hand  ready  to  make 
one  forget  it.  In  short,  it  is  the  old 


THE   AMERICAN   EPICUREAN.  85 

parable  of  the  children  and  the  King 
dom  of  Heaven.  Take  life  as  a  child 
takes  its  playthings.  Enjoy  each  one, 
and  be  ready  to  pass  at  a  moment's 
notice  to  another.  And,  above  all 
things,  do  not  trouble  about  death. 
That  is  another  advantage  of  this  dis 
enchantment  which  brings  a  double 
enchantment  with  it.  If  you  are 
struggling  for  a  high  ideal,  if  you 
have  a  great  work  to  accomplish,  you 
are  in  constant  fear  of  death,  of  los 
ing  your  object,  of  being  cut  off  just 
as  you  are  about  to  attain.  There  is 
but  one  thing  that  can  hamper  or 
annoy  you  more  in  your  efforts  than 
life,  and  that  is  death.  Now,  this 
sweet  Epicureanism  that  I  am  preach 
ing  to  you,  makes  death  all  but  an 
indifferent  matter.  This  endless  round 
of  little  interests  and  pleasures  serves 
very  well  to  pass  away  the  time,  but 


86       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

you  are  willing  enough  to  leave  it. 
That  strange  curiosity  with  which 
death  tickles  us  has  full  play,  so  that 
even  in  the  very  midst  of  pleasures  we 
are  as  ready  as  mortality  can  be,  to  lift 
the  black  curtain  and  step  out  into  dim 
night.  Yes,  my  friend,  take  my  word 
for  it,  the  Epicureanism  I  recommend 
to  you  is  the  Epicureanism  of  Epicurus 
and  the  true  philosophy  of  life." 

I  listened  respectfully,  and  said  to 
myself  :  "  It  may  be,  I  suppose,  an 
excellent  philosophy  for  him  who  has 
no  better." 


THE  AMERICAN   PHILAN 
THROPIST. 

'VERY  century,"  says  Sainte- 
Beuve,  "  has  its  hobby  :  that 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  charity." 
This  does  not  mean  that  the  various 
moods  and  theories  included  under 
that  name  were  unknown  before,  but 
that  the  nineteenth  century  has  made 
the  most  of  them,  has  become  absorbed 
in  them  to  a  degree  earlier  periods 
would  have  found  it  difficult  to  under 
stand.  Now  anything  peculiar  to  the 
nineteenth  century  is  likely  to  find  its 
fullest  development  in  the  United 
States.^  We  are  people  of  our  time, 
stamped  with  its  very  form  and  pres 
sure  ;  and  we  are  not  clogged  and 
87 


88       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

retarded,  as  Europe  is,  by  old  habits 
and  inherited  traditions. 

It  is  a  laudable  custom  to  attribute 
everything  good  that  has  appeared  in 

/  the  world  in  the  last  eighteen  hundred 
years  to  the  influence  of  Christianity  — 

\  philanthropy  included.  Even  those 
who  are  not  quite  satisfied  with  this 
method  are  at  least  obliged  to  admit 
that  every  great  spiritual  movement 
since  the  advent  of  Christianity  is  inti 
mately  connected  with  it.  The  most 
attractive  way  of  representing  the  mat 
ter  philosophically  is  to  regard  Chris 
tianity  as  a  vital  element  in  the  great 
progress  of  the  human  race,  at  once 
conditioning  and  conditioned  by  the 
other  elements  that  play  about  it. 
Some  people,  however,  deny  the  fact 
of  progress  altogether.  "We  gain," 
they  say,  "  in  one  direction ;  we  lose  in 
another ;  and  humanity  in  its  essential 


THE  AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.        89 

traits  remains  the  same."  This  view 
requires  some  distinctions.  It  is,  in 
deed,  true  that  the  basis  of  our  nature, 
the  assertion  of  self,  which  has  been 
summed  up  in  the  reproductive  instinct 
and  the  instinct  of  self-preservation, 
continues  unchanged.  As  long  as  we 
are  animals,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive 
of  anything  else.  But  who  can  com 
pare  the  world  of  to-day  with  the 
world  of  the  Jews  or  the  world  of  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  and  not  say  that 
the  intellectual  progress  has  been 
enormous?  Any  theory  of  evolution 
necessarily  implies  such  a  progress  \ 
but  mere  empirical  observation  surely 
proves  it  without  regard  to  theory. 
Now  the  moral  nature  of  man  involves 
a  combination  of  intellect  with  the 
animal  instincts ;  therefore,  as  regards 
morals,  if  there  has  not  been  progress, 
there  must  at  least  have  been  change. 


90       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Of  course,  it  would  be  absurd  to 
deny  that  the  elements  of  charity  or 
philanthropy  existed  in  the  world  be 
fore  the  nineteenth  century,  or,  indeed, 
as  far  back  as  we  know  anything  of 
history.  How  can  we  imagine  a  think 
ing  human  being  destitute  of  the  im 
pulse  to  give  bread  to  the  hungry  and 
to  relieve  the  wretched  from  oppres 
sion?  The  oldest  literature  abounds 
in  instances  of  such  sympathy  and  ten 
derness.  There  is  not,  however,  much 
evidence  that  the  doctrine  of  human 
brotherhood,  of  the  solidarity  of  man 
kind  as  such,  was  popular,  or  even 
known,  among  the  Greeks,  for  instance. 
With  the  Romans  it  is  something  the 
same ;  but  the  vast  extent  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  the  multitude  of  dif 
ferent  races  living  in  harmony  together 
under  that  one  sway,  the  toleration  in 
duced  by  this,  did  much  to  overcome 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       QI 

the  narrowness  of  ancient  ideas  of 
nationality,  to  emphasize  the  value  of 
the  individual  human  soul.  Perhaps 
no  classical  quotation  is  more  famous 
than  the  Homo  sum :  humani  nil  a 
me  alienum  puto.  The  philosophers 
of  the  Stoic  School  —  Seneca,  Epictetus, 
Marcus  Aurelius  —  exerted  a  great  in 
fluence  in  the  same  direction ;  but 
philosophers  unfortunately  do  not  think 
much  of  those  who  are  not  philoso 
phers —  good  creatures,  but  so  igno 
rant  !  Besides,  how  was  it  possible 
for  the  brotherhood  of  man  to  make 
headway  in  a  nation  whose  whole 
political  system  was  based  on  slavery? 
Here  comes  in  the  influence  of 
Christianity.  The  most  superficial  ex 
amination  of  even  traditional  Chris 
tianity  must  show  that  its  fundamental 
principle  is  the  value  of  the  human 
soul  as  such.  "To  the  poor  the  gos- 


92       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

pel  is  preached."  "The  last  shall  be 
first,  and  the  first  last."  "For  I  am 
come  not  to  call  the  righteous  but 
sinners  to  repentance."  Here  is  no 
distinction  of  class,  no  promise  held 
out  to  the  great  and  noble  only,  no 
salvation  offered  as  a  premium  to 
wealth  or  to  superior  intelligence. 
"Blessed  are  they  that  mourn,  for 
they  shall  be  comforted."  At  last 
there  shone  upon  the  earth  a  light  that 
was  to  lighten  spirits  in  darkness,  and 
to  heal  those  who  seemed  beyond  all 
cure. 

Well,  Christianity,  in  spite  of  its 
philanthropy  and  its  democracy,  got 
along  very  comfortably  with  the  des 
potism  of  Rome  and  the  despotism  of 
Constantinople,  with  the  tyranny  of  the 
Dark  Ages,  and  the  bigotry  of  mediae 
val  Catholicism.  It  may  be  said  that 
the  teachings  of  Christ  were  abused 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.        93 

rather  than  used  by  all  these  powers 
of  evil  ;  yet  it  seems  strange  enough 
that  such  a  tremendous  influence 
should  not  have  produced  a  result 
earlier,  if  its  tendency  was  really  in 
the  direction  suggested  above.  The 
explanation  is  simple  enough.  Chris 
tianity  did,  indeed,  teach  the  absolute 
equality  of  all  men,  the  perfect  equiva 
lence  of  one  soul  with  another,  whether 
rich  or  poor,  wise  or  unwise,  but  — 
and  here  is  the  point — this  equality 
was  not  in  relation  to  this  world  ;  it 
was  in  relation  to  another.  It  was  the 
application  of  this  principle  that  at 
once  enabled  the  lower  classes  to  bear 
at  all  the  terrible  anarchy  of  the  Dark 
Ages  and  disposed  them  to  bear  it 
patiently.  For  the  peasant,  who  at 
one  blow  saw  house  and  family  torn 
away  from  him,  there  was  at  least  the 
consolation  of  feeling  that  all  these 


94       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

woes  would  be  soon  drowned  in  the 
light  of  a  joy  which  was  open  to  high 
and  low  alike,  and  which  would  come 
not  to  the  oppressor,  but  to  the  op 
pressed.  On  this  account  Christianity 
may  be  regarded  rather  as  —  at  least 
negatively  —  the  enemy  of  political 
freedom  and  republicanism,  of  the 
attempt  to  improve  the  condition  of 
humanity  here  on  earth,  than  as  the 
friend  of  all  these  things.  For  these 
things  require  a  preoccupation  with  the 
affairs  of  this  world  which  is  apt  to 
interfere  very  considerably  with  devo 
tion  to  another.  Whether  justifiably 
or  not,  the  formula,  "Render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's," 
has  been  made  and  can  be  made  to 
support  almost  any  kind  of  arbitrary 
government. 

Therefore,  it   is  in  a  sense  correct 
to    attribute    the    philanthropy   of  the 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.        95 

nineteenth  century  to  Christianity,  in 
another  sense  it  is  incorrect.  The 
true  account  of  the  genesis  of  that 
mighty  force  is,  I  think,  something 
like  this.  After  the  feudal  oppression 
of  the  Dark  Ages  we  come  to  the 
Renaissance,  the  awakening  of  the 
human  spirit  from  its  lethargy  of  a 
thousand  years.  The  merely  animal 
life  in  this  world,  —  brutal  in  its  en- 
joyment,  stupid  in  its  misery,  —  the 
earth-forgetting,  transfiguring  life  in 
the  next  world,  began  to  give  way  to 
a  great  reaction,  which  substituted  for 
the  play  of  muscular  force  the  applica 
tion  of  intellect  to  all  the  varied  inter 
ests  of  human  existence  as  we  find 
it  on  the  green  earth  here  about  us. 
The  old  Greek  and  Roman  civiliza 
tion  reappeared,  modified,  deepened, 
and  enlarged  by  the  influence  of 
Christianity.  Freed  from  the  bonds 


g6       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

of  ecclesiastical  slavery  and  political 
anarchy,  men  gave  themselves  up  in 
ecstasy  to  taking  possession  of  all  the 
new  sources  of  joy  offered  them  by  the 
present  and  the  past.  A  great  drama 
in  England,  Spain,  and  France,  a  great 
school  of  painting  in  Italy,  gave  vent  to 
the  re-awakened  creative  imagination 
which  had  fed  upon  Greek  thought, 
upon  Christian  feeling,  above  all,  upon 
Nature  and  human  life,  as  they  were 
presented  to  human  life  then  and 
there.  This  gorgeous  carnival  lasted 
longer  in  some  countries  than  in  oth 
ers,  but  it  lasted  everywhere  in  its  gen 
eral  effects  through  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  down  to  the 
eighteenth.  Then  there  was  a  cool 
ing  off.  The  glow  of  imagination 
faded  a  little,  and  reflection,  coming 
to  look  into  things,  found  that  the 
world  was  not  yet  altogether  perfect ; 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       97 

indeed,  in  many  respects  quite  far  from 
it.  It  was  evident  that  art  and  the  charm 
of  society  were  very  well  for  those  who 
could  get  them ;  but  there  seemed  to 
be  such  a  large  portion  of  humanity 
that  never  did  get  them,  was,  in  fact, 
'quite  as  badly  off  as  when  these  things 
*were  not  heard  of  in  the  world  at  all. 

Here  we  come  to  the  dawn  of 
modern  philanthropy.  The  theoretical 
doctrines  on  the  subject  came  from 
%.ousseau  and  the  philosophers  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  Those  philoso 
phers  were  no  friends  to  the  Christian 
Religion,  and  to  give  them  all  the 
credit  in  the  matter  might  seem  like 
disregarding  the  part  of  Christianity 
altogether.  The  fact  is,  however,  sim 
ply  this :  Rousseau  and  his  friends 
took  from  the  religion  of  Jesus  the 
essential  principle  of  the  equality  of  all 
men,  but  as  their  eyes  were  fixed  on 
H 


98       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

this  world  rather  than  on  the  other, 
they  applied  it  to  the  affairs  of  this 
world,  as  Christianity  never  had  cared 
to  do. 

With  the  eighteenth  century,  then, 
the  history  of  philanthropy  begins, 
that  is,  of  the  doctrine  of  the  uni 
versal  brotherhood  of  man,  of  the 
elevation  of  the  race  as  a  whole,  oi 
the  sacred  right  of  all  men  to  certain 
elementary  privileges,  of  the  duty  and 
pleasure  of  associating  others  with  one's! 
own  joys,  of  associating  oneself  with 
others'  suffering  and  misery.  It  is 
impossible  to  separate  this  moral  doc 
trine  from  the  political  theories  that 
have  resulted  in  universal  suffrage; 
and  the  best  guarantee  of  the  perma 
nence  of  the  political  theories  is  the 
impossibility  of  any  return  from  the 
moral  standpoint.  How  can  the  civil 
ized  world  ever  go  back  to  the  idea 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       99 

that  one  class  of  men  exists  only  for 
the  benefit  of  another?  The  theory 
of  political  equality  may  prove  very 
difficult  of  application,  so  difficult  that 
a  state  of  things  quite  opposed  to  this 
theory  may  be  brought  about  here 
and  there  again  and  again.  But  noth 
ing  short  of  the  complete  extinction 
of  our  present  civilization  can  make 
mankind  forget  the  lesson  it  has  been 
so  long  in  learning. 

Other  elements  besides  reasoning 
do,  however,  enter  into  the  doctrine 
of  human  fellowship.  The  restless 
imagination  of  the  Renaissance  set 
itself  at  first  to  create  innumerable 
beings  in  the  world  of  art,  beings 
that  might  afford  an  outlet  for  its 
new  tide  of  passionate  emotion.  But 
after  this  resource  was  partially  ex 
hausted,  or,  more  properly,  after  rest 
lessness  and  curiosity  had  spread  from 


100       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

the  artists  among  those  who  had  no 
particular  creative  gift,  a  flood  of 
human  sympathy  began  to  pour  over 
the  whole  of  animate  and  inanimate 
nature.  The  mind,  grown  too  vast,  too 
noble  for  any  satisfaction  that  the 
body,  the  life  of  the  immediate  indi 
vidual,  could  afford  it,  longed  to  ex 
tend  its  sphere  of  sensation,  to  feel 
not  only  in  its  own  limited  range 
but  in  the  personality  of  others,  nay, 
in  the  vast  and  varying  forms  and 
moods  of  nature.  The  literature  of 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 
the  beginning  of  our  own,  the  so- 
called  romantic  movement,  is  a  proof 
of  this.  When  had  there  ever  been 
before  such  an  enthusiasm  for  reviv 
ing  the  history  and  the  life  of  the 
past,  when  had  there  been  such  a 
passion  for  the  natural  world,  such  a 
wild;  strange  longing  for  identification 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       IOI 

with  the  life  of  life,  for  some  escape 
from  the  narrow,  confining  prison  of 
ourselves  ?  The  Greeks  had  been  con 
tent  with  the  calm  and  moderate  en 
joyments  offered  by  social  and  national 
existence.  The  men  of  the  Renais 
sance  had  thrown  themselves  feverishly 
but  yet  joyously  into  the  whirl  of  the 
senses.  But  the  Senancours,  the  Cha- 
teaubriands,  the  Byrons,  the  Shelleys, 
looked  and  longed  for  some  satisfaction 
not  to  be  found  here,  some  larger, 
deeper  grasp  on  being  than  is  possible 
with  the  limitations  of  our  sensual 
bodies.  In  the  words  of  the  pro- 
foundest  of  them  :  "  The  jonquil  or 
the  jessamine  would  be  enough  to  tell 
us  that  such  as  we  are  we  might 
sojourn  in  a  better  world." 

The  restlessness,  the  fever,  of  that 
generation  has  passed  away.  A  philo 
sophical  acceptance  of  limitations  has 


102       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

spread  more  and  more  widely.  The  in 
tellect,  attempting  no  more  to  take  the 
senses  with  it  in  its  wanderings,  has 
turned  into  the  ways  of  science,  has 
schooled  itself  to  understand  nature 
rather  than  feel  it,  to  accept,  since  per 
force  it  must,  analysis  instead  of  pas 
sion,  curiosity  instead  of  sympathy. 
Only  the  keen  apprehension  and  com 
prehension  of  other  people's  lives  can 
never  be  lost.  We  may  not  succeed 
very  well  in  entering  into  their  pleas 
ures  ;  but  we  are  condemned,  so  long 
as  the  world  shall  endure,  to  feel  their 
pain. 

It  is  the  combination  of  abstract 
doctrines  as  to  the  rights  of  man  with 
this  infinite  sympathy,  this  acute  sen 
sibility,  that  makes  philanthropy  the 
swift  and  mighty  force  it  grows  to  be. 
All  of  us,  so  many  of  us,  at  any  rate, 
say  with  Shelley : 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       103 

;"Me  who  am  as  a  nerve  o'er  which  do  creep 
The  else  unfelt  oppressions  of  this  earth." 

We  realize  in  our  very  bodies  the 
suffering  of  the  poor  and  wretched,  to 
an  extent  beyond  the  conception  of 
a  Greek,  or  Roman,  or  Elizabethan. 
We  are  ready  sometimes  to  cry  in 
despair  with  Se"nancour :  "  How  can  a 
life  be  happy  passed  in  the  midst  of 
those  who  suffer?"  Even  the  calmest 
and  sanest  have  at  times  an  uneasiness, 
almost  a  sense  of  guilt,  when  they  find 
themselves  comfortable  and  well-off 
with  poverty  and  misery  about  them. 

Nowhere,  probably,  is  this  tendency 
so  strong,  nearly  so  strong,  as  it  is  in 
America.  In  Europe,  inherited  dis 
tinctions  of  class  make  certain  differ 
ences  natural  to  the  rich  and  tolerable 
to  the  poor.  Here  we  all  feel  that  the 
very  theory  of  our  government  demands 
equality,  not  only  political  but  social; 


104       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

and  the  struggle  to  maintain  it  is  pas 
sionate.  Another  thing  that  makes 
philanthropy  a  prominent  feature  of 
our  civilization,  is  the  new  and  im 
mense  activity  of  women.  The  great 
amount  of  practical  energy  brought 
out  in  them  by  education,  combined 
with  their  natural  sensibility  and  enthu 
siasm,  makes  them  leaders  and  guides 
in  all  humanitarian  movements.  When 
they  do  not  take  the  control  of  things 
into  their  own  hands,  they  stand  in 
the  background  and  urge  on  the  men. 
How  many  objects  which  men  have 
deemed  hopeless  have  been  attained 
by  the  indomitable  idealism,  the  tire 
less  persistence,  of  women  ! 

Certainly,  the  philosopher  of  three 
hundred  years  ago  would  note  among 
us  first  of  all  the  extraordinary  number 
of  charitable  societies,  of  private  benev 
olent  institutions  of  all  kinds.  There 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       105 

is  no  end  to  them  :  missionary  societies 
abroad  among  all  nations  and  among 
all  classes  at  home,  temperance  socie 
ties,  associated  charities,  societies  for 
the  aid  of  men,  of  women,  of  chil 
dren,  soldiers,  sailors,  animals,  socie 
ties  to  protect  the  uncontaminated  and 
convert  the  corrupt,  societies  to  do 
anything  and  everything  that  the  imag 
ination  of  man  —  or  woman  —  can  in 
vent,  and  his  ingenuity  execute.  The 
extension  of  this  universal  sympathy 
beyond  man,  even  to  animals,  is  well 
known,  as  are  also  the  immense  results 
achieved  in  that  direction.  For  the 
logical  extreme  of  this  we  must  go  to 
the  episode  in  the  Light  of  Asia,  where 
Buddha  is  represented  as  offering  his 
life-blood  to  quench  the  thirst  of  an 
exhausted  tiger.  The  Occidental  not 
only  shrinks  from  this  ;  his  serene  good- 
sense  teaches  him  to  laugh  at  it.  Nev- 


106       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

ertheless,  it  shows  that  philanthropy,  or 
rather  self-renunciation,  has  its  limita 
tions,  and  perhaps  is  not  such  a  uni 
versal  panacea  as,  like  other  hobbies, 
it  is  sometimes  assumed  to  be. 

In  short,  no  amount  of  sentiment 
will  cover  up  the  fact  that  the  principle 
of  absolute  self-sacrifice  is  based  on  a 
contradiction.  The  first  instinct  of  the 
human  animal,  like  every  other,  is  the 
satisfaction  of  immediate  desire,  —  ap 
petite,  if  you  will.  The  development  of 
the  intellectual  faculties,  however,  soon 
shows  the  insufficiency  of  any  satisfac 
tion  appealing  only  to  the  senses.  The 
next  step  is  to  construct  an  ideal  of 
happiness  beyond  and  outside  of  this 
present  world,  which  shall  be  attained 
by  the  subdual  and  humiliation  of 
desire  in  this,  by  self-sacrifice  and 
even  martyrdom.  The  enthusiasm  of 
primitive  Christianity,  of  mediaeval 


THE  AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       107 

Christianity,  was  based  on  such  a 
system.  But  a  further  process  of  de 
velopment  shows  the  insufficiency  of 
even  this  postponement  of  happiness, 
and  higher  and  more  sensitive  natures 
begin  to  repudiate  distinctly  the  idea 
of  buying  a  selfish  bliss  in  the  future 
by  self-sacrifice  in  the  present.  Good 
must  be  done,  not  for  gain,  but  for  the 
sake  of  doing  it.  We  are  here,  as  I 
heard  said  the  other  day,  to  live  for 
others,  to  be  useful  to  the  world  as  a 
whole ;  when  we  cease  to  be  so,  we 
have  no  right  to  live  at  all.  After 
traditional  Christianity  has  been  aban 
doned,  even  after  all  definite  belief  in 
dogmatic  religion  has  faded  away,  we 
find  people  making  out  of  this  devotion 
to  others  a  new  religion,  with  the  high- 
sounding  name  of  Altruism.  It  is  said 
that  the  child  of  a  philosopher,  hearing 
one  day  much  lecturing  on  this  subject 


I08       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

of  living  for  others,  commented  as 
follows :  "  But,  Papa,  if  everybody  is 
to  live  for  others,  who  are  the  others?" 
Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  suck- 
ings— 

It  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  the 
principles  of  this  religion  are  not  those 
of  Christianity,  though  they  may  ac 
cord  with  them  in  some  points  :  the 
Christian  renounces  self  that  he  may 
regain  it  more  fully  and  freely,  but 
there  is  an  immense  difference  between 
this  self-renunciation  and  self-annihila 
tion.  You  become  supremely  indif 
ferent  to  everything  on  earth,  you  be 
come  very  misty  about  heaven;  but 
other  people  are  less  sceptical  —  why 
not  give  them  all  the  happiness  one 
can?  Nineteenth  century  philanthropy 
is  closely  connected  with  a  colossal 
indifference,  also  peculiar  to  the  nine 
teenth  century,  a  world-weariness,  not 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       1 09 

passionate,  not  despairing,  not  blase", 
but  simply  indifferent,  which  sums  up 
its  philosophy  in  this  direful  phrase  : 
"The  ideal  of  life  is  to  be  able  to 
have  whatever  you  want  and  to  want 
nothing  whatever."  O,  poor  humanity, 
which,  seeing  strewn  before  it  the  gray 
ashes  of  burnt-out  pleasures,  deludes 
itself  a  little  longer  by  bustling  about 
to  fan,  if  possible,  the  lingering  coals 
into  a  glow  ! 

Of  course,  neither  this  indifferentism 
nor  genuine  ideal  enthusiasm  accounts 
for  all  philanthropy.  Self  is  not  so 
entirely  dead  among  those  who  busy 
themselves  with  the  welfare  of  others. 
We  must  allow  something  to  the  im 
perative  demand  for  activity  that  is  born 
in  us,  the  constant  and  intense  need  of 
applying  our  mental  energy  to  one  form 
or  another  of  the  stolid  resistance  offered 
by  nature  animate  or  inanimate.  In  the 


1 10       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Middle  Ages  this  restless  force  ex 
pended  itself  in  destruction.  Those 
who  to-day  are  philanthropists  and  save 
lives  in  the  fourteenth  century  destroyed 
them.  Would  not  Hotspur  have  made 
an  admirable  philanthropist, — Hotspur, 
"  that  kills  me  some  six  or  seven  dozen 
of  Scots  at  a  breakfast,  washes  his 
hands,  and  says  to  his  wife  :  '  Fie  upon 
this  quiet  life  !  I  want  work  '"?  How 
often  one  is  disgusted  with  the  egotism, 
the  arrogance,  the  pettiness  of  philan 
thropists.  With  what  righteous  scorn 
they  affect  to  regard  any  one  who  goes 
his  own  way  quietly,  peacefully,  not 
injuring  the  rest  of  mankind  and  not 
over-anxious  to  destroy  himself  in  their 
service !  And  what  supreme  confi 
dence  has  the  philanthropist  in  his 
methods,  what  sovereign  indifference 
for  the  methods  of  nature  !  After  one 
has  suffered  and  suffered  long  under 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       Ill 

this  infliction,  can  there  be  balm  more 
delicious  than  Emerson's  quiet  sen 
tence  :  "  Nature  will  not  have  us  fret 
and  fume.  She  does  not  like  our 
benevolence  or  our  learning  much  bet 
ter  than  she  likes  our  frauds  and  wars. 
When  we  come  out  of  the  caucus,  or 
bank,  or  the  Abolition-convention,  or 
the  Temperance-meeting,  or  the  Tran 
scendental  club  into  the  fields  and 
woods,  she  says  to  us,  'So  hot?  my 
little  Sir?'" 

The  truth  is,  now  that  war  is  done 
away  with,  at  least  for  the  time,  our 
civilization  offers  no  sufficient  equiva 
lent.  Trade  —  that  more  systematic 
but  quite  as  pitiless  struggle  —  is  too 
slow,  too  barren  of  occasions  for  dis 
tinction,  too  openly  and  evidently  ego 
tistical.  War,  though  founded  on  hatred, 
does  breed  a  spirit  of  union  for  one 
cause,  does  afford  numberless  oppor- 


112       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

tunities  for  heroism,  for  all  the  higher 
and  purer  virtues  of  self-sacrifice. 
Trade  in  itself  fosters  only  one  thing, 
pure,  cold,  calculating  selfishness,  and 
encourages  a  system  of  morality  which 
gains  nothing  whatever  by  comparison 
with  that  of  war.  Indeed,  it  is  curious 
to  notice  how  there  has  grown  up  side 
by  side  with  philanthropy  and  from  the 
same  source  a  doctrine  and  method  of 
life  entirely  opposed  to  it,  the  most  ex 
treme  and  intense  individualism.  Men 
are  all  equal :  well,  then  let  each  one 
take  care  of  himself.  Equal  rights 
imply  equal  ability  to  defend  those 
rights.  Society  is  a  mutual  arrange 
ment  by  which  every  man  is  enabled; 
the  most  fully  to  struggle  with  every 
other  man  for  material  advantages,  not 
a  vast  organization  in  which  each  per 
son  plays  his  subordinate  part  for  the 
benefit  and  happiness  of  the  whole. 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       113 

There  cannot  be  too  much  insistence 
on  the  immense  distinction  between 
republicanism  —  as  conceived  by  Plato, 
for  instance  —  and  democracy,  between 
the  State  as  an  ideal,  organic  principle, 
and  individualism,  or  in  its  logical  ex 
treme,  anarchy. 

Now  in  many  cases  philanthropy, 
enthusiasm  for  benevolent  objects,  is 
but  a  cover  for  this  tendency  to  indi 
vidualism,  to  colossal  selfishness.  Men 
whose  whole  lives  are  spent  in  a  pas 
sionate  struggle,  their  hand  against 
every  man's,  and  every  man's  against 
them,  compound  with  conscience  by 
giving  a  thousand,  or  a  great  many 
thousand  dollars,  or  even  what  is  more, 
their  time,  to  this  or  that  missionary 
society  or  charitable  institution.  It  is 
so  much  easier  even  to  sell  all  one  has 
and  give  to  the  poor  than  to  overcome 
this  lurking,  poisoning,  tempting,  mas- 


114       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

tering  devil,  self.  Money  is  so  much 
easier  to  give  than  love.  But  here  we 
have  our  Emerson  again  in  a  passage 
that  has  been  a  puzzle  and  bewilder 
ment  to  many  a  gentle  and  generous 
soul: 

"  I  tell  thee,  thou  foolish  philanthro 
pist,  that  I  grudge  the  dollar,  the  dime, 
the  cent  I  give  to  such  men  as  do  not 
belong  to  me  and  to  whom  I  do  not 
belong.  There  is  a  class  of  persons 
to  whom  by  all  spiritual  affinity  I  am 
bought  and  sold ;  for  them  I  will  go  to 
prison  if  need  be ;  but  your  miscel 
laneous  popular  charities ;  the  educa 
tion  at  college  of  fools ;  the  building 
of  meeting-houses  to  the  vain  end  to 
which  many  now  stand ;  alms  to  sots, 
and  the  thousand-fold  Relief  Societies ; 
—  though  I  confess  with  shame  I  some 
times  succumb  and  give  the  dollar, 
it  is  a  wicked  dollar,  which  by  and 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       115 

by  I  shall  have  the  manhood  to  with 
hold." 

In  good  truth  there  are  times  when 
one  grows  infinitely  weary  of  this  cant, 
which  persists  in  taking  the  manner  for 
the  matter,  the  letter  for  the  spirit,  the 
hand  for  the  heart. 

Is  there,  then,  nothing  more  to  be 
said?  After  such  a  cold  analysis,  is 
there  no  palinode  to  be  sung?  It 
seems  almost  a  crime  to  sit  idly  in 
one's  study  and  dissect,  perhaps  falsely, 
at  any  rate  uselessly,  the  most  real,  the 
most  lasting,  the  most  ennobling  of  all 
the  interests  that  make  life  beautiful  or 
even  tolerable.  It  is  not  the  great 
movements  that  count,  the  noise,  the 
ostentatious  self-sacrifices,  the  flaunting 
self-conscious  activity;  it  is  the  quiet 
lives  of  daily  renunciation  and  denial, 
the  lives  that  are  passed  in  shadow, 
devoted  to  soothing  pain,  to  ending 


Il6       TYPES  OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

strife,  to  spreading  love  by  sweet  ex 
ample,  without  reward,  often  uncon 
sciously.  Who  can  overlook  it,  or 
resist  it,  or  put  it  away  from  him  ?  we 
are  not  men,  but  man.  What  you 
have  suffered  I  may  suffer,  do  suffer; 
what  you  enjoy,  enjoy.  Do  we  not  all, 
all  come  back  to  those  words  of  Shelley, 

"  Me  who  am  as  a  nerve  o'er  which  do  creep 
The  else  unfelt  oppressions  of  this  earth  "  ? 

He  whose  nerves  do  not  thrill  and 
throb  and  burn  at  the  thought  of 
tyranny  or  injustice  —  injustice  of  hu 
manity  or  the  still  fiercer  injustice  of 
circumstances  —  is  not  a  man,  but  a 
machine,  does  not  exist.  When  we 
are  away  from  home,  faces  indifferent 
there,  or  even  disagreeable,  become 
sweet  and  full  of  kinship.  So  must  it 
be  for  man  with  man  in  the  wide,  un 
certain  desert  of  this  world.  As  ship- 


THE   AMERICAN   PHILANTHROPIST.       117 

wrecked  sailors,  in  their  hour  of  calm 
and  prosperity  separated  by  jarring 
interests,  by  petty  quarrels,  are  yet  knit 
together  in  one  great  terror  before  the 
face  of  death ;  so  we,  as  we  look  at 
our  individual,  earthly  existences,  feel 
no  connection,  no  sympathy ;  but  when 
we  turn  and  meet  the  invisible,  the  un 
known  in  which  these  frail  habitations, 
our  bodies,  are  swayed  like  a  bubble  in 
the  wind,  we  cling  together  mutely, 
passionately,  sustained  by  that  love 
alone  in  the  dim  gulf  of  an  enormous 
night. 


THE   AMERICAN     MAN   OF 
LETTERS. 

IT  is  difficult  to  define  the  man  of 
letters.  He  is  one  who  lives  for 
literature,  and  generally  by  literature, 
who  makes  it  a  serious  pursuit  and  no 
pastime;  not  a  specialist,  though  he 
sometimes  deals  with  specialties;  nor 
a  scholar,  though  he  is  sometimes 
deeply  read  in  many  things.  If  he 
writes  on  philosophy  or  history,  he 
must  have  a  sense  of  style,  of  dra 
matic  construction  and  effect.  Plato 
was  a  man  of  letters,  but  can  one  say 
the  same  of  Aristotle?  Tacitus  was, 
and  Gibbon;  but  one  hesitates  to 
apply  the  name  to  Mommsen  or  to 
the  late  E.  A.  Freeman. 
118 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       1 19 

There  are  some  poets  who  hardly 
seem  to  be  men  of  letters,  —  singers 
of  spontaneous  and  flowing  genius, 
who  write  as  they  breathe,  and  have 
apparently  no  consciousness  of  effort: 
Shakspere,  Chaucer,  Byron,  Scott  even, 
in  spite  of  his  enormous  production 
and  the  labour  involved  in  it.  Virgil, 
on  the  other  hand,  Dante,  Milton, 
above  all,  Goethe,  are  men  of  letters 
first,  poets  afterward. 

I  have  named  a  classical  and  a  me 
diaeval  writer.  Such  men  as  Lucian 
or  Erasmus  have  certainly  much  of  the 
modern  man  of  letters  about  them. 
Yet  it  is  with  the  seventeenth  century 
only  that  the  type  fully  develops  its 
qualities.  Dryden  is  an  admirable 
example:  ready  to  turn  his  hand  to 
anything,  swift  in  production,  easy  in 
manner,  free  from  pedantry,  yet  accu 
rate,  and  careful  of  pure  diction; 


120       TYPES    OF    AMERICAN    CHARACTER. 

proud  of  his  profession,  not  treating 
it  as  a  plaything,  like  Byron  and 
Scott,  yet  a  man  of  the  world,  with 
his  eyes  open  to  what  went  on  about 
him.  And  in  France  we  have  Vol 
taire,  to  whom  pedantry  was  of  all 
things  most  abhorrent,  yet  who  never 
let  his  pen  dangle  nor  forgot  his  art. 
The  ideal  man  of  letters  stands  half 
way  between  the  poet  and  the  literary 
hack:  he  envies  the  poet's  divine 
fire,  but  dreads  his  frenzy;  he  scorns 
vulgarity  and  the  hasty  patching  of 
the  penny-a-liner. 

The  journalist  is  not  necessarily  a 
man  of  letters,  but  the  growth  of 
journalism  has  made  a  great  differ 
ence  in  the  literary  career.  Before 
the  days  of  periodical  literature  men 
wrote  for  a  small,  cultivated  class, 
whose  criticism  was  always  more  or 
less  intelligent;  they  had  not  the 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       121 

pressure  of  a  yawning  column  wait 
ing  to  be  rilled  This  hurry  of  pub 
lication  suits  some  quick  and  active 
minds,  which  work  readily,  perhaps 
work  best,  under  the  spur;  but  it  is 
not  favourable  to  long,  silent,  patient 
labour  on  a  masterpiece.  It  is  so 
easy  now  for  the  best  writers  to  slip 
into  criticism,  into  facile,  graceful 
comment  on  the  works  of  others! 
The  magazines  are  open,  and  pay 
well;  easy  writing  makes  easy  read 
ing;  the  public  prefer  what  they  can 
catch  at  an  idle  moment,  in  a  car, 
between  two  naps.  Perhaps  great 
geniuses  do  not  fall  into  this  error, 
but  it  is  strange  if  they  do  not.  At 
any  rate,  we  are  flooded  with  books 
well  worth  reading,  full  of  talent, 
which  may  not  be  slighted,  yet  ephe 
meral,  not  only  from  haste  of  compo 
sition,  but  from  their  exclusive  appeal 


122       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

to  the  taste  of  the  day.  Take,  in 
French  literature,  for  instance,  Sainte- 
Beuve,  a  man  of  the  most  original 
genius,  penetrating  insight,  grace  and 
poetry  of  style.  He  has  been  dead 
twenty  odd  years,  and  how  old-fash 
ioned  he  seems  beside  the  French 
criticism  of  to-day!  I  do  not  mean 
that  MM.  Brunetiere,  Faguet,  Le- 
maitre,  France,  are  his  superiors  in 
knowledge  or  skill,  but  they  are  near 
to  us,  and  he  is  remote,  —  as  they 
will  be  twenty-five  years  hence. 

The  modern  man  of  letters  —  espe 
cially  if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the 
poet,  novelist,  dramatist,  or  critic  — 
is  sorely  tried  by  the  need  of  decid 
ing  between  two  alternatives.  On 
the  one  hand  he  has  before  him  the 
literature  of  the  past,  a  huge,  silent 
treasure-house,  which  he  must  explore 
more  or  less,  which  he  can  never  ran- 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       123 

sack  thoroughly,  which,  if  he  has  the 
conscience  of  his  art,  perpetually 
haunts  him.  On  the  other  hand  he 
has  the  spectacle  of  life,  —  life  infi 
nitely  varied,  as  in  the  modern  world 
it  is,  in  any  world,  —  the  bewilder 
ing  beauty  of  colour  and  movement, 
the  endless  play  of  human  passions  on 
each  other,  the  million  new  shapes  in 
which  old  traits  appear,  morals  and 
immorals,  the  one  as  interesting  as 
the  other,  and  none  of  these  things  to 
be  neglected.  He  needs  the  books 
to  throw  light  on  the  world,  he  must 
have  the  world  to  vivify  the  books. 
How  can  he  have  both?  The  modern 
literature  of  Germany  amply  shows  the 
lack  of  the  one.  And  those  very 
French  critics  I  have  been  speaking 
of  show  the  want  of  the  other;  for, 
varied  and  charming  as  they  are,  one 
does  not  find  them  very  deep  in  in- 


124       TYPES   OF    AMERICAN    CHARACTER. 

tellectual  matters.  Even  when  they 
are  familiar  with  their  own  literature, 
it  is  really  astonishing  to  an  Ameri 
can  to  see  how  ignorant  they  are  of 
the  literatures  of  other  countries. 
Yet  in  the  nineteenth  century,  to 
know  one  literature  one  must  know 
all. 

The  tendencies  of  modern  literary 
life  in  France  are  illustrated  in  an 
interesting  way  in  the  Journal  of  the 
brothers  De  Goncourt,  whose  inti 
mate  and  long-continued  collabora 
tion  is  one  of  the  most  curious  cases 
of  a  curious  phenomenon.  They 
were  men  who  chose  their  course 
early.  The  past  had  little  interest 
for  them  and  was  soon  cast  aside. 
Except  in  one  or  two  periods  history 
had  no  lessons  for  them.  They 
cared  only  to  keep  their  eyes  and 
ears  open  to  what  went  on  about 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       125 

them,  to  rivet  all  their  senses  on 
the  subtle  yet  significant  phases  of 
contemporary  life.  By  this  method 
they  succeeded  in  obtaining  very 
curious,  in  some  respects  very  admir 
able,  results;  but  their  narrowness 
and  lack  of  sympathy  annoys  one 
constantly. 

Another  difficulty  for  the  man  of 
letters:  there  has  never  before  been 
any  such  competition  as  he  is  obliged 
to  contend  with  to-day.  It  is  easy 
to  say  that  good  work  will  always 
come  to  the  front,  that  genius  will 
make  its  way.  But  there  are  different 
kinds  of  good  work.  The  public  has 
never  been  so  composite  as  it  is  now. 
Before  the  universal  triumph  of  de 
mocracy  literature  was  controlled  by 
educated  people.  They  may  not 
have  done  all  the  reading,  but  they 
did  all  the  deciding.  If  they  pro- 


126       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

nounced  anything  good,  the  herd 
took  that  or  nothing  at  all.  Now 
every  one  is  educated  so  that  there 
are  no  longer  educated  people.  What 
is  of  more  importance,  every  one  is 
busy.  Literary  work,  to  reach  per 
manence,  must  fight  its  way  through 
the  mob  of  weary  men  and  women 
who  read  to  be  amused  in  the  easiest 
and  most  superficial  manner.  It  must 
not  only  have  abiding  qualities  of 
originality  and  power;  it  must  have 
superficial  attractions,  which  are  not 
always  combined  with  such  qualities. 
In  other  words,  the  candidate  for 
literary  honours  has  to  compete  not 
only  with  genius  but  with  mediocrity. 
This  must  have  been  always  the  case 
to  a  certain  extent,  but  it  is  of  the 
greatest  consequence  to-day.  The 
career  of  a  novelist  like  M.  Georges 
Ohnet  in  France  illustrates  what  I 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       127 

mean.  He  is  apparently  an  author 
of  great  cleverness,  with  an  easy  grace 
of  manner,  and  a  faculty  of  writing 
to  please  the  average  man  because 
he  resembles  him.  Well,  his  success 
has  been  enormous.  He  sells  not 
only  editions,  but  tens  of  editions 
with  perfect  ease,  and  it  is  amusing 
to  watch  the  wrath  and  scorn  of  the 
French  critics  to  whom  it  falls  to 
judge  him.  Possibly  names  of  the 
same  kind  might  be  picked  out  for 
England  and  America. 

One  great  advantage  that  medi 
ocrity  has  in  this  race  is  fertility  of 
production.  This  is  not  always 
denied  to  genius,  as  we  see  in  the 
cases  of  Scott  and  George  Sand, 
though  it  is  to  be  wished  that  even 
they  had  yielded  a  little  less  to  the 
pressure  of  popularity.  But  evidently 
fertility  is  not  a  necessary  element 


128       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

of  great  literary  power,  and  to  write 
hurriedly  is  certainly  not  the  best 
way  to  write  well.  Now,  writers  like 
M.  Georges  Ohnet,  and  many  others, 
whom  I  need  not  name,  can  produce 
their  literary  wares,  such  as  they  are, 
as  readily  as  they  breathe.  The  limit 
to  their  work  is  set  only  by  their  in 
dustry  and  their  physical  strength. 
Conscientious,  thoughtful,  painstak 
ing  writers  can  not  for  a  moment  com 
pete  with  them. 

Imagine  a  young  man  who  begins 
with  a  determination  to  make  litera 
ture  a  profession,  the  business  of  his 
life.  He  has  high  ideals,  original 
views  of  things.  He  has  prepared 
himself  by  careful  study  of  great 
thinkers  and  great  masters  of  style, 
and  he  is  ready  to  study  much  more, 
to  make  his  work  solid  and  worthy  of 
a  place  among  the  books  he  worships. 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       129 

He  says  to  himself :  "  I  will  not  trifle 
with  what  is  ephemeral.  I  will  not 
condescend  to  cheap  work,  hack  work, 
hasty  work.  I  will  not  degrade  my 
genius,  if  I  have  one,  by  that  of  which 
I  should  hereafter  be  ashamed." 
What  is  such  a  man  to  do?  If  he  is 
poor  and  must  earn  his  living,  his 
position  is  worst  of  all.  But  even 
suppose  him  so  situated  that  this  is 
not  absolutely  necessary.  He  must 
get  his  name  before  the  public  and 
keep  it  there.  Thoughtful,  serious 
criticism  will  not  do  this  for  him. 
Even  fiction  will  not  do  it,  unless  he 
has  some  special  rattle  for  the  public 
imbecility.  Poetry,  if  it  were  com 
posed  by  all  the  nine  Muses  together, 
would  never  reach  the  light  of  day. 
I  remember  seeing  it  stated  not  long 
ago,  and  I  have  no  doubt  correctly, 
that  there  is  not  a  publisher  in  Amer- 
K 


130       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

ica  who  will  take  any  risk  with  poetry 
by  an  unknown  author.  Perhaps  this 
has  been  always  more  or  less  true. 
Certain  kinds  of  literature  have  never 
had  an  extensive  sale  when  first  pro 
duced;  but  supposing  the  sale  of 
them  to  have  been  in  times  past  no 
larger  than  it  is  to-day,  —  and  very 
likely  it  was  not  so  large,  —  the  damn 
ing  fact  is  that  they  are  choked  at 
once  by  the  enormous  mass  of  more 
popular  work  put  in  competition  with 
them.  It  may  be  that  the  wheat  has 
never  prospered  more  abundantly  than 
now,  but  the  crop  of  tares  has  in 
creased  a  million  fold. 

Our  young  author,  therefore,  yields 
to  the  temptation  to  sow  tares  of  his 
own,  thinking  that,  just  as  people 
plant  quick-springing  grain  to  protect 
their  lawns,  and  then  get  rid  of  it 
afterwards,  so  he  can  bring  forward 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       13! 

his  good  matter  under  cover  of  his 
trash,  and  with  years  transform  him 
self  from  a  jack-of-all-trades  to  a 
passed  master  in  the  highest  province 
of  art.  It  may  happen  so  sometimes. 
More  frequently  the  man  who  thus 
sets  out  falls  more  and  more  under 
the  rod  of  public  tyranny.  If  he  suc 
ceeds  in  a  popular  line,  it  is  hard  to 
give  it  up.  If  he  fails,  he  is  tied  to 
the  wheel  indefinitely.  In  any  case, 
he  awakes  some  day  to  find  his  style 
disfigured  and  corrupted,  his  ideas 
scattered  and  deformed,  his  confi 
dence  in  human  nature  wofully 
shaken,  his  great  literary  ideal  faded 
and  vanished,  he  knows  not  where. 

But  suppose  he  avoids  this  danger, 
and,  instead  of  putting  on  the  yoke, 
chooses  an  eremitic  or  Bohemian 
wretchedness,  with  only  his  ideal  to 
adore.  Suppose  he  avoids  the  mam- 


132       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

mon  of  popularity  and  closets  him 
self  with  some  great  work,  which, 
once  published,  shall  bring  him  fame 
and  riches  and  everything  that  is 
desirable.  In  the  first  place,  a  great 
work  carried  on  under  these  con 
ditions  is  apt  to  come  to  nothing. 
Without  the  spur  of  definite  hope,  a 
man  in  such  a  case  procrastinates 
until  the  ideal  of  success  seems  so 
far  off  that  he  prefers  to  nurse  it  for 
itself  rather  than  risk  the  loss  of  it 
altogether.  Even  if  he  perseveres, 
overcomes  poverty  and  sickness  and 
heart-sickness  by  indomitable  will, 
makes  his  work  his  pleasure  and  shuns 
everything  that  does  not  tend  to  for 
ward  it  and  perfect  it,  —  well,  are  the 
chances  great  that  he  will  ever  get  it 
before  the  world,  or  that,  when  he  has 
dragged  it  from  publisher  to  pub 
lisher,  and  at  last  found  a  reluctant 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       133 

acceptance,  he  will  ever  get  more  for 
it  than  scanty  praise  and  scantier 
pence?  Of  course,  this  "mute,  in 
glorious  Milton"  sort  of  thing  is  gen 
erally  rejected;  people  say  that  really 
inspired  production  is  always  recog 
nized.  Perhaps  it  is;  but  how  do 
they  know  it? 

The  truth  is,  the  uncertain  fortunes 
of  literary  work  are  a  melancholy  fact. 
Not  to  mention  the  shifting  fame  of 
even  Dante  or  Shakspere,  take  Shel 
ley,  who  paid  for  the  publication  of 
his  own  poems,  take  these  same  De 
Goncourts  I  mentioned  above,  who 
also  paid  for  the  publication  of  their 
earlier  novels,  and  who  afterwards 
stood  among  the  first  writers  of  the 
school.  Perhaps  one  ought  not  to  say 
that  everything  refused  by  publishers 
is  good,  but  one  may  safely  infer  that 
much  is  so.  Not  that  they  can  be 


134       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

blamed.  Plenty  of  people  to-day 
speak  with  enthusiasm  of  David 
Grieve ;  yet  there  are  also  plenty  of 
critics  who,  if  one  judges  by  their 
tone,  would  not  accept  it  offered 
them  by  an  unknown  writer. 

There  are  chances  in  all  these 
things.  Flaubert  worked  years  over 
Madame  Bovary,  putting  into  it  al 
most  incredible  labour  and  care.  It 
had  an  enormous  success.  Neverthe 
less,  in  the  De  Goncourts'  Journal  we 
find  him  complaining  bitterly  that 
what  made  Madame  Bovary  succeed 
was  its  cote  vaudeville,  that  is  its  hav 
ing  what  the  French  commonly  call  a 
success  of  scandal.  Indeed,  no  one 
could  for  a  moment  imagine  that 
either  La  Tentation  de  Saint  Antoine, 
Salammbo,  or  L>  Education  Senti- 
mentale  would  have  made  any  im 
pression  on  the  public,  if  Madame 
Bovary  had  not  preceded  them. 


THE   AMERICAN    MAN    Ol'    LETTERS.       135 

Those  who  do  not  mind  the  harsh 
and  monotonous  pessimism  of  Leo- 
pardi  will  find  in  his  essay  called 
//  Parini  ovvero  Delia  Gloria  a  vigo 
rous  and  passionate  statement  of  the 
difficulties  with  which  the  modern 
man  of  letters  has  to  contend.  Leo- 
pardi  himself  failed  in  the  struggle 
with  them,  or  at  least  he  could  not 
overcome  them  during  his  lifetime; 
and  what  he  thought  of  posthumous 
reputation  the  reader  will  learn  from 
the  essay  referred  to  above. 

What  I  have  said  thus  far  is  gene 
ral,  and  does  not  especially  bear  on 
American  conditions.  One  or  two 
things  make  the  position  of  the  Amer 
ican  man  of  letters  quite  different 
from  that  of  his  French  or  English 
brother.  In  the  first  place,  —  though 
it  takes  courage  to  say  so,  —  our  pub 
lic  is  more  ignorant.  That  is  easily 


136       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

explained.  The  public  here  includes 
a  far  greater  part  of  the  population 
than  in  European  countries.  Such 
magazines  as  Harper's  and  The  Cen 
tury  are  read  by  every  one.  They 
must  therefore  contain  matter  that 
every  one  can  read.  I  have  heard 
that  the  editor  of  a  magazine  more 
literary  in  character  than  either  Har 
per's  or  The  Century  aims  to  take 
nothing  which  will  not  be  alike  intel 
ligible  to  his  butcher  and  to  a  college 
professor.  The  taste  of  one  may  be 
as  good  as  that  of  the  other,  but  it 
is  something  of  a  strain  to  have  to 
address  oneself  to  both.  The  late 
James  Russell  Lowell  is  credited  with 
saying  that  we  were  "the  most  com 
mon-schooled  and  the  least  educated 
people  in  the  world."  I  doubt 
whether  that  is  true.  But  it  is  prob 
able  that  education,  taken  in  the 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF  LETTERS.       137 

sense  not  of  common-schooling  nor 
of  mere  scholarship,  but  of  thought 
ful,  trained  knowledge  of  human  life 
based  on  a  familiar  acquaintance  with 
both  the  past  and  the  present,  never 
had  less  influence  over  the  fortunes  of 
literature,  at  any  rate,  and  perhaps  of 
some  other  things,  than  it  has  in  the 
United  States  to-day.  With  this  con 
dition  of  affairs  the  American  man  of 
letters  has  to  contend.  Well  is  it  for 
him,  if  he  succeeds,  as  Lowell  in  a 
measure  did,  in  combining  a  talent  for 
catching  the  ear  of  the  great,  indolent, 
capricious  public  with  solid  learning, 
original  thought,  and  literary  charm. 
Without  the  first  of  these  requisites  he 
will  give  up  his  pursuit  in  disgust,  or 
he  will  struggle  vainly,  wearily,  and 
wreck  at  last,  unhonoured  and  un 
known. 

Another     difficulty    the     American 


138       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

man  of  letters  has  to  overcome.  He 
has  no  literature  behind  him.  It  is 
hardly  possible  for  one  who  has  not 
given  himself  to  a  literary  life  to  im 
agine  what  this  means.  The  French 
or  English  historian,  critic,  novelist, 
poet,  has  an  immense  past  from  which 
he  can  draw  matter  sure  to  be  inter 
esting  to  his  public,  sure  to  command 
a  certain  amount  of  sympathy  from 
its  very  nature.  A  critic  like  Sainte- 
Beuve  —  and,  indeed,  like  most  of 
those  of  contemporary  France  —  may 
bury  himself  entirely  in  French  liter 
ature,  may  know  little  or  nothing  of 
the  literature  of  other  countries,  and 
have  by  that  very  fact  a  better  claim 
on  the  attention  of  his  public.  The 
same  is  true  of  models  as  of  matter. 
A  Frenchman  or  Englishman  has 
behind  him  the  great  masters  of  his 
own  literature,  the  study  of  whom  is 


THE    AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       139 

connected  with  all  the  circumstances 
of  his  own  intellectual  development. 
Every  reminiscence  of  them  is  sure 
to  be  familiar  and  acceptable  to  his 
readers.  Every  association  with 
them  gives  an  added  charm  to  any 
work  of  his  own. 

It  will  be  said  that  we  have  at  any 
rate  two  hundred  years  of  history 
behind  us.  It  is  very  true,  and  of 
late  excellent  use  has  been  made  of 
it.  But  if  we  take  out  two  or  three 
wars,  some  of  those  not  the  most  ex 
citing  ever  heard  of,  no  one  will,  I 
think,  maintain  that  our  past  is  pict 
uresque  when  compared  with  that  of 
Europe  in  the  last  two  centuries;  nor 
has  there  been  till  very  recently  the 
variety  of  manners  or  the  movement 
of  life  which  is  absolutely  essential  to 
literary  work  intended  to  interest  the 
general  public. 


140       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

For  models,  however,  we  are  much 
worse  off  than  for  historical  material. 
Irving  and  Cooper,  Prescott  and  Mot 
ley,  are  excellent  writers,  no  doubt; 
but  there  are  not  many  more  like 
them,  and  no  one  will,  I  think,  place 
them  with  Shakspere  or  Voltaire. 
We  usually  think  of  the  literature  of 
England  as  belonging  to  us  also;  but 
any  one  who  has  tried  it  knows  how 
hard  it  is  to  keep  up  this  fiction,  how 
jealous  people  are  inclined  to  be  of 
what  is  English,  how  far  away  from  us 
English  manners  and  interests  are, 
while  they  are  growing  more  distant 
every  day. 

There  ought  to  be  some  advantages 
in  not  being  hampered  by  a  tradition 
inherited  from  the  past.  If  we  have 
no  models  to  work  from,  we  should  in 
all  fairness  have  no  standards  to  be 
judged  by.  This  is  not,  I  think, 


THE  AMERICAN   MAN  OF   LETTERS.       14! 

practically  the  case.  A  great  part  of 
our  literature  consists  of  imitations 
of  old-world  celebrities.  And  the 
new  schools  which  struggle  after  origi 
nality  are  apt  to  show  a  painful  effort 
in  the  pursuit  of  it.  Whitman,  for 
instance,  is  a  man  of  genuine  power; 
yet  it  is  hard  to  tell  whether  he  is 
more  affected  in  his  departure  from 
recognized  standards  or  in  his  uncon 
scious  reproduction  of  them. 

It  will  be  asked  why  any  one  goes 
into  literature  at  all,  when  the  pros 
pect  is  so  unattractive.  But  the 
answers  —  there  are  a  number  of  them 
—  are  ready.  In  the  first  place,  the 
literary  life  is  supposed  by  the  out 
sider  to  be  an  easy  life.  It  is  not  an 
easy  life,  but  people  are  tempted  into 
it  on  that  supposition.  It  is  a  com 
paratively  free  life.  That  is,  you 
must  work  all  the  time,  but  you  need 


142      TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

work  only  when  you  wish  to,  if  the 
paradox  be  permissible.  At  any  rate, 
you  have  no  one  in  authority  over 
you. 

It  is  a  life  that  requires  no  training, 
or  at  least  on  this  point  also  many 
are  misled  by  the  popular  idea  of  it. 
It  is  certainly  a  lottery  in  which  the 
prizes  are  very  great,  and  in  which 
they  may  and  do  fall  where  they  are 
least  expected,  if  not  least  deserved. 
In  the  other  arts  one  never  succeeds 
without  prolonged  and  patient  effort. 
In  literature  cases  have  been  known 
where  great  success  attended  the  first 
attempt.  Most  of  us  have  a  good 
opinion  of  our  own  powers  before  we 
have  tried  them.  Why  should  not  we 
startle  the  world  as  well  as  others? 

Great  is  the  love  of  reputation.  It 
is  agreeable  to  be  bowed  down  to,  and 
in  this  country  especially,  a  small 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       143 

amount  of  literary  distinction  goes 
a  great  way.  The  popular  corres 
pondent  of  a  newspaper,  who  very 
possibly  cannot  spell,  gets  much  more 
incense  than  the  author  of  a  treatise 
on  philosophy.  And  where  reputa 
tion,  numerical  glory,  is  the  object, 
—  with  whom  is  it  not  an  object  of 
greater  or  less  account?  —  what  more 
dazzling  ideal  could  be  proposed 
than  literary  success  in  the  United 
States.  A  public  quantitatively  so 
great  was  never  addressed  by  an 
author  before.  A  novelist,  a  novelist 
who  attains  notoriety,  can,  I  sup 
pose,  count  on  millions  of  readers. 
Compared  with  the  successes  of  two 
hundred  years  ago,  it  really  seems 
like  writing  for  posterity  in  your  own 
day. 

Naturally,  then,  a  good  many  men, 
and  a  good  many  women,  go  into  lit- 


144       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

erature,  and  as  they  go  into  it  with 
their  eyes  open,  perhaps  they  deserve 
no  pity  when  they  fail.  Still,  some 
of  them  cherish  the  amiable  delusion 
that  they  are  giving  their  lives  to 
benefit  the  human  race,  and  one  can 
not  refuse  them  a  certain  amount  of 
sympathy.  Indeed,  in  so  far  as  they 
keep  this  ideal  before  them,  they  are 
surely  worthy  of  all  respect  and  admi 
ration.  The  man  who  refuses  to  sac 
rifice  his  literary  conscience,  who 
refuses  to  bow  down  before  the  altar 
of  cheap  sensationalism,  trivial  gos 
sip,  machine  politics,  who  does  these 
things  not  only  from  perhaps  fantastic 
notions  about  the  service  of  art  for 
art,  but  from  a  sense  of  personal 
dignity  and  self-respect,  that  man, 
whether  successful  or  unsuccessful, 
deserves  all  honour,  more  than  in 
many  instances  he  gets.  He  is  the 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       145 

ideal  American  man  of  letters,  and  I 
might  have  dwelt  more  fully  on  him. 
His  office  is,  or  should  be,  a  most  im 
portant  one,  and  he  must  strive  with 
all  the  power  in  him  to  make  it  so. 

One  writer  we  have  had  who  took 
this  position  in  an  almost  ideal  way; 
I  mean  Emerson.  Emerson  was  not, 
indeed,  a  man  of  letters  in  the  nar 
rowest  sense.  He  was  more  than  that. 
He  was  a  prophet,  a  sage,  an  inspirer 
of  other  men,  who  used  literature, 
sometimes  a  little  impatiently,  as  an 
imperfect  instrument  for  imparting 
the  truths  he  felt  himself  destined  to 
convey.  But  he  had  many  qualities 
the  man  of  letters  would  do  well  to 
imitate.  He  was  essentially  a  mod 
em  man.  He  was  familiar  with  the 
past  and  loved  many  things  about  it; 
but  he  was  "up  to  the  times"  in  the 
fullest  sense,  in  science,  in  theology, 
L 


146       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

in  politics.  He  looked  forward  and 
not  back;  it  cannot  be  too  often  em 
phasized.  Besides  this,  he  was  a 
lover  of  truth  and  had  his  eyes  open 
to  seek  it.  In  this  he  recalls  another 
great  writer,  who  from  some  points  of 
view  may  serve  as  the  model  man  of 
letters,  Goethe.  He  it  was  who  wrote 
that  sentence  which  should  be  the 
motto  —  one  of  the  mottoes  —  of  every 
one  who  devotes  himself  to  a  literary 
life :  "  Wahrheitsliebe  zeigt  sich  darin, 
dass  man  uberall  das  Gute  zu  finden 
und  zu  schatzen  weiss"  Love  of 
truth,  hatred  of  insincerity  and  sham, 
whether  it  means  courting  vulgar 
tastes  or  shouting  party  watchwords, 
openness,  sympathy, —  these  are,  above 
all,  what  the  man  of  letters  should  cul 
tivate  in  this  or  in  any  other  country. 
But  here,  where,  in  the  uncertain  state 
of  creeds  and  churches,  he  becomes  a 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       147 

sort  of  guide,  priest  almost,  he  should 
seek  these  things  with  all  his  heart  and 
soul,  at  the  same  time  with  a  clear, 
though  somewhat  melancholy,  con 
sciousness  that  other  things  will  not 
be  added  unto  him. 

I  often  ask  myself  —  probably  many 
others  do  likewise  —  what  will  be  the 
first  really  great  original  literary  devel 
opment  of  this  country.  I  suppose  no 
one  will  claim  that  we  have,  as  yet, 
done  anything  worthy  of  our  name  and 
position  in  history.  We  have  had 
many  good  authors  here  and  there,  but 
none  of  the  first  calibre  or  scope. 
Will  the  coming  writer  be  a  novelist? 
Certain  things  seem  to  indicate  that 
the  novel,  at  least  in  the  ordinary 
form,  has  for  the  present  had  its  day. 
Genius  can  do  anything,  but  it  is  dif 
ficult  for  common  minds  to  see  how 
any  new  departure  in  the  way  of 


148       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

a  novel  is  possible.  And  it  is  safe 
to  predict  —  now  —  that  the  coming 
writer  will  not  be  in  the  closest  sense 
a  realist,  —  if  anybody  can  say  what 
that  sense  is. 

Will  there  be  a  grand  revival  of  the 
drama?  It  is  difficult  to  imagine.  In 
spite  of  some  signs  of  improvement  on 
the  American  stage,  the  conditions  are 
unpromising.  The  supremacy  of  the 
"common-schooled"  is  felt  far  more 
in  the  theatre  than  in  the  publishing 
house.  More  than  that,  the  theatre 
would  seem  to  demand  a  metropolis 
for  its  successful  development.  It  is 
essentially  dependent  upon  a  local 
atmosphere.  Plays  intended  for  a 
dozen  capitals  cannot  take  hold  like 
those  written  for  Paris.  It  is  also 
argued  that  stage-settings  are  killing 
the  drama.  About  that  there  may  be 
more  question.  But  it  cannot  be  de- 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       149 

nied  that  there  exists  a  separation 
between  actors  and  managers  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  literary  class  on 
the  other,  which  makes  a  truly  literary 
drama  seem  almost  hopeless. 

Well  —  and  poetry?  Some  people 
think  poetry  has  disappeared  from  the 
world  forever.  I  am  not  of  that  num 
ber.  The  enjoyment  of  metrical  form, 
and  the  peculiar  excitement  of  style 
that  goes  with  it,  do  seem  at  a  low 
ebb  among  our  practical  countrymen. 
But  it  has  been  so  before.  It  was  so 
in  the  dark  ages,  when  the  world  was 
barbarous;  it  was  so  in  the  later 
Roman  age,  when  the  world  was  bar 
barous  from  over-civilization,  —  as  it 
is  now.  But  there  comes  a  Renais 
sance  for  all  these  things.  The  Muses 
are,  perhaps,  the  only  deities  who  do 
not  at  length  abandon  the  children  of 
men. 


I5O       TYPES  OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Yet  it  is  not  poetry  that  most  often 
suggests  itself  to  me  as  the  regenerator 
of  our  literary  reputation.  I  cannot 
but  think  that  the  form  of  art  which 
would  at  once  be  most  akin  to  certain 
feelings  of  our  people,  and  would  also 
be  compatible  with  the  demands  of 
literary  excellence,  would  be  some 
great  work  of  humour,  of  laughter. 
We  are  too  serious,  we  take  ourselves 
too  seriously,  our  vices  and  our  virtues 
too  seriously,  life  too  seriously.  The 
defect  of  such  a  writer  as  Whitman  is 
that  he  cannot  see  in  how  many  re 
spects  he  is  an  enormous  joke.  We 
have  had  humourists,  it  is  true.  I  am 
not  sure  but  that  their  writings  form 
to-day  the  most  original  and  charac 
teristic  literature  we  have;  which  is 
not  very  creditable  to  us,  for  they  are 
extremely  vulgar  and  extremely  super 
ficial,  whereas  the  truly  great  literary 


THE   AMERICAN   MAN   OF   LETTERS.       151 

humourist  is  free  from  all  vulgarity 
and  profoundly  deep.  But  some  day, 
before  many  years,  —  he  may  be  among 
us  now,  —  there  will  come  a  true  son 
of  Aristophanes  and  Rabelais  and  Cer 
vantes,  who  will  prick  the  bubble  of 
our  vast  self-satisfaction,  without 
bitterness,  without  harshness,  with 
none  of  the  cynical  satire  of  the 
French  pessimistic  school.  His  first 
principle  will  be  laughter,  but  his 
second  will  be  love;  and  he  will  show 
that  we  must  take  this  good  world  as , 
we  find  it,  not  complain  because  it  is 
not  better,  nor  wear  all  the  joy  out  of 
ourselves  trying  to  make  it  better. 
He  will  ridicule  a  great  many  things : 
politics,  and  patent  medicines,  and 
temperance  societies,  and  woman's 
rights,  and  reform  generally.  He  will 
tread  on  a  great  many  people  s  toes, 
and  turn  the  world  upside  down,  and 


152       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

make  us  see  the  great  glories  of  this 
bustling  age  insignificant  and  jumbled 
together  like  the  glass  in  a  kaleido 
scope.  He  will  spare  no  one,  yet 
every  one  will  love  him,  because  he 
will  be  lovable,  which  is,  after  all,  the 
best  reason  for  loving  in  the  world. 
And  I  should  advise  him  to  inscribe 
on  his  title-page  these  charming 
verses,  which  I  borrow  from  M.  Ana- 
tole  France,  who  has  himself  borrowed 
them  from  I  know  not  where,  — 

"  Les  petites  marionettes 
Font,  font,  font 
Trois  petits  tours 
Et  puis  s'en  vont." 


THE  AMERICAN  OUT  OF 
DOORS. 

WE  are  too  prone  to  look  at 
modern  life  as  cut  off  from 
the  past  by  a  great  gulf :  it  is  so  much 
more  important  to  us.  A  Greek,  a 
mediaeval  Italian,  seems  spectral,  im 
possible.  We  cannot  realize  that 
Athenians  and  Florentines  loved  and 
hated,  bought  and  sold,  jested,  wept, 
talked  scandal,  suffered  and  died, 
quite  as  men  do  nowadays.  The 
world  is  so  old  and  yet  so  new. 
These  same  commonplaces  I  am  writ 
ing  have  been  written  so  many  times 
before  and  seemed  just  as  common 
place.  Yet  we  forget  them. 


154       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Notwithstanding,  certain  differ 
ences,  marked  differences,  do  sepa 
rate  the  nineteenth  century  from  the 
past.  Great  forces  have  worked  to 
mould  our  civilization,  some  of  them 
external  and  material,  yet  even  these 
reacting  on  the  internal  and  spiritual, 
as  the  external,  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  always  must.  To  go  some 
way  back,  there  is  printing,  a  force 
that  made  itself  felt  long  ago;  but  the 
development  of  printing  in  the  daily 
press  is  something  absolutely  modern, 
and  who  can  estimate  its  importance? 
Then  there  is  democracy,  closely  con 
nected  with  the  preceding;  the  belief 
that  the  numerical  majority  of  man 
kind  is  not  only  entitled  to  equal 
consideration  by  government,  but 
competent  to  control  that  govern 
ment,  almost,  if  not  quite,  directly. 
Again,  we  have  the  great  mechanical 


THE   AMERICAN  OUT  OF  DOORS.      155 

discoveries,  which  fall  within  the  last 
hundred  years:  steam,  the  breaker- 
down  of  barriers,  the  annihilator  of 
nationality,  the  agent  that  has  tripled 
man's  control  of  nature  and  drawn 
tighter  the  girdle  of  the  world;  elec 
tricity,  which  already  regards  tele 
graph  and  telephone  as  trifles,  and 
looks  forward  to  producing  in  another 
century  a  locomotive  power  that  will 
make  us  cast  steam  into  a  corner, 
forgotten. 

There  are  spiritual  influences,  too, 
subtler  and  harder  to  investigate, 
which  may  be  considered  either  as 
cause  or  as  effect.  For  instance, 
there  is  the  extraordinary  develop 
ment  of  music,  which  in  the  modern 
sense  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  three 
hundred  years  old:  music,  so  differ 
ent  from  all  the  other  arts  in  its  com 
bination  of  sensuous  appeal  with 


156   TYPES  OF  AMERICAN  CHARACTER. 

supersensual  suggestion;  so  quick  to 
profit  by  mechanics,  yet  so  far  above 
them;  so  capable  of  expressing  all 
moods  and  all  passions;  so  various 
in  its  methods  and  styles;  in  a  word, 
so  pre-eminently  modern.  Another 
influence,  quite  as  modern  and  even 
more  powerful,  is  the  love  of  nature. 
Perhaps  I  should  say,  the  scientific 
study  and  comprehension  of  nature. 
Neither  expression  by  itself  is  suffi 
cient. 

All  literature  and  history  prove 
that  the  character  of  a  people  is 
largely  modified  by  the  topography 
of  the  region  it  inhabits;  and  the 
extremes  to  which  a  theory  based  on 
this  is  carried  by  Taine  and  critics 
of  his  school  are  well  known.  Most 
nations  have  been  conscious  of  the 
part  thus  taken  by  their  surroundings 
in  their  moral  development,  and  have 


THE   AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.     157 

recognized  it  in  one  way  or  another. 
This  is,  however,  quite  different  from 
scientific  study.  Observation,  the 
patient  search  after  facts,  seems  to 
be  a  late  fruit  of  civilization,  a  fruit 
that  was  very  long  in  ripening. 
Socrates,  at  least  in  Xenophon's  re 
port  of  him,  anticipated  Pope  in  pro 
claiming  that  "the  proper  study  of 
mankind  is  man."  Aristotle,  with 
his  immense  curiosity,  discovered  and 
recorded  many  things;  but  the  natural 
history  of  the  ancients  is  largely  fabu 
lous  and  a  priori,  as  in  the  elaborate 
work  of  Pliny;  and  the  mass  of  de 
duction  and  hearsay  transmitted  by 
that  industrious  personage  influenced 
the  science  of  the  Middle  Ages  to  an 
astonishing  degree.  Those  who  are 
familiar  with  Elizabethan  writers  are 
well  aware  of  this.  The  extravagant 
zoology  and  botany  which  formed  an 


158       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

important  element  in  the  style  of 
Lyly  and  the  Euphuists  have  been 
frequently  ridiculed.  Even  Shaks- 
pere  is  by  no  means  free,  as  in  his 

"  Sweet  are  the  uses  of  adversity, 
Which,  like  the  toad,  ugly  and  venomous, 
Wears  yet  a  precious  jewel  in  his  head." 

But  patient  scientific  study  had  not 
been  wanting  in  the  Renaissance, 
amid  all  the  riot  of  the  imagination. 
The  great  voyagers  and  explorers, 
although  they  brought  home  new  fic 
tions  of  their  own,  yet  destroyed  many 
of  the  old.  Copernicus  had  revolu 
tionized  astronomy,  and  even  among 
the  Elizabethans  his  discoveries  were 
beginning  to  have  their  effect  on  the 
literary  world.  Bacon  laid  the  foun 
dation  of  modern  scientific  methods, 
and  the  temper  developed  rapidly,  as 
we  see  in  Browne's  book  on  Vulgar 


THE  AMERICAN  OUT  OF  DOORS.   159 

Errors,  which  admits  some  extraordi 
nary  conclusions,  but  shows  a  true 
spirit  of  curiosity,  of  critical  research, 
and  of  respect,  at  least,  for  thorough 
experiment. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  such  a 
spirit  spread  everywhere,  as  reason 
began  to  supplant  imagination,  and 
poetry  to  give  way  to  prose.  The 
eighteenth  century  was,  however,  too 
busy  with  political  and  social  prob 
lems  to  concern  itself  seriously  with 
great  scientific  movements.  Philoso 
phy  and  political  economy,  the  study 
of  man,  took  precedence  of  the  study 
of  nature.  With  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  the  latter  pursuit  finally  asserted 
itself.  The  great  mechanical  inven 
tions  and  practical  applications  of 
science  increased  the  facilities  for 
theoretical  investigation,  and  made  it 
more  attractive.  The  theories  elabo- 


l6o      TYPES   OF    AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

rated  by  Darwin  were,  as  is  well 
known,  in  the  air  some  time  before 
he  formulated  them.  He  is  but  the 
representative  of  his  age,  at  least  in 
that  direction;  nor  would  it  be  pos 
sible  to  find  a  better  example  of  the 
ideal  scientist  than  he.  Patient, 
spending  years  in  the  accumulation 
of  facts,  never  hastening,  never  fret 
ting,  putting  results  as  far  as  possible 
out  of  sight  that  they  may  not  tempt 
him  from  severe  and  unprejudiced 
investigation,  working  for  no  end  of 
practical  utility,  and  for  fame  only 
carelessly  and  as  a  secondary  object, 
such  a  man  personifies  the  best  that 
nature  has  to  teach  us.  We  learn 
from  him  respect  for  details  that 
seem  insignificant;  we  learn  not  to 
jump  at  conclusions;  we  learn  once 
more  the  lesson  —  alas,  so  often  for 
gotten —  of  Newton,  "picking  up  a 


THE  AMERICAN  OUT  OF  DOORS.  l6l 

shell  here  and  there  on  the  beach, 
while  the  vast  ocean  of  truth  lay  open 
before  him."  Darwin  is  perhaps  too 
favourable  an  example  of  the  natural 
ist's  modesty  and  simplicity,  but 
familiarity  with  nature  appears  to 
breed  these  qualities  more  than  some 
studies  peculiarly  associated  with 
man. 

What  could  be  more  important  than 
the  change  produced  in  our  view  of 
the  external  world  by  the  theories 
which  are  generally  connected  with 
Darwin's  name?  A  French  critic 
writes:  "Is  it  preposterous  to  say 
that  posterity  will  draw  a  line,  a  deep 
line,  in  the  history  of  human  thought, 
between  the  men  who  lived  before  and 
those  who  lived  after  Darwin?  It  is 
somewhat  as  the  change  that  was  for 
merly  brought  about  by  the  discovery 
of  America  and  of  Copernican  cos- 

M 


1 62       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

mology."  Whether  this  feeling  be 
true  or  false,  it  would  be  foolish  to 
deny  the  immense  hold  it  has  taken 
on  men's  minds.  We  may  not  for 
mally  accept  the  principle  of  evolu 
tion,  but  we  are  all  of  us  inclined  to 
put  man  in  a  very  different  position 
in  nature  from  the  one  he  occupied  a 
hundred  years  ago.  He  is  no  longer 
a  little  god,  with  the  rest  of  the  uni 
verse  prostrate  at  his  feet,  but  takes 
his  place  among  other  beings,  an 
essential  element,  — •  the  most  essen 
tial,  possibly,  but  still  only  an  element 
in  the  vast  play  of  the  organic  and  in 
organic  world.  Nor  is  this  view  con 
trary  to  philosophy  as  distinguished 
from  science,  though  the  conclusion 
may  be  reached  along  a  different  line. 
To  the  Hegelian,  as  to  the  Darwinian, 
man  has  ceased  to  be  cut  off  and  dis 
sociated  from  nature;  she  has  no 


THE  AMERICAN  OUT  OF  DOORS.  163 

reality  but  in  him,  yet  neither  has  he 
reality  but  in  her.  It  is  evident  that 
to  a  man  who  has  accepted  these  doc 
trines  the  external  world  assumes  a 
new  aspect :  it  is  no  longer  something 
indifferent,  or  an  enemy  to  be  kept 
under  and  controlled;  it  is  an  inex 
haustible  store  of  facts,  each  bound 
up  with  others  and  bearing  upon 
them,  each  pregnant  with  its  own 
teaching,  and  perhaps  with  a  lesson 
that  no  man  can  afford  to  overlook 
or  neglect. 

I  believe  this  new  growth  of  inter 
est  in  nature  is  nowhere  so  wide 
spread  as  among  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  The  Teutonic  and 
Keltic  races  seem  to  take  to  it  more 
readily  than  the  Latin,  and  even  than 
the  Greek.  Greek  poetry  is  full  of 
allusions  to  natural  objects,  but  these 
are  almost  always  referred  to  in  illus- 


164       TYPES    OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

tration  of  human  passions.  The  gift 
of  painting  in  clear  lines  and  with 
imaginative  feeling,  as  we  see  it,  for 
instance,  in  Theocritus,  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  divine  Greek 
genius  in  everything,  must  not  be 
confused  with  the  love  of  descrip 
tion  which  has  become  conspicuous 
in  modern  literature.  Occasional 
touches  of  outdoor  life  with  an  ex 
quisite  charm  are  to  be  found  in 
Lucretius,  in  Catullus,  in  Virgil;  but 
here,  too,  everything  is  subordinated 
to  man.  It  has  been  observed  that 
to  the  Romans  Switzerland  was  merely 
desolate  and  repulsive,  which  is 
enough  to  show  that  they  had  not 
the  modern  sense  of  the  picturesque. 
A  somewhat  careful  study  of  the 
Italian  poet  Leopardi  has  convinced 
me  that  he  had  nothing  of  the  pe 
culiar  sentiment  of  nature-worship  so 


THE   AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.     165 

striking  in  his  contemporaries,  Eng 
lish,  French,  and  German.  Nor  do 
we  find  it  in  the  great  poets  of  Spain, 
if  a  conclusion  on  the  subject  be  per 
mitted  to  one  who  has  only  entered 
the  skirts  of  the  great  forest  of  seven 
teenth-century  drama.  The  plays  of 
Calderon  are  full  of  roses  and  waves 
and  winds  and  nightingales.  It  would 
be  hard  to  surpass  the  melancholy 
and  Virgilian  grace  of  his  flowers,  — 

"  Durmiendo  en  brazos  de  la  noche  fria;  " 

but  one  does  not  find  in  him  that 
subtle  observation  combined  with 
imaginative  colour  which  abounds  in 
Shakspere :  — 

"A  mole  cinq- spotted,  like  the  crimson  drops 
I'  the  bottom  of  a  cowslip." 

"  Daffodils, 

That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty." 


166      TYPES  OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

The  love  of  the  Kelts  for  nature,  and 
their  method  of  interpreting  her  as 
compared  with  the  methods  of  other 
races,  are  admirably  analyzed  in  Mat 
thew  Arnold's  Lectures  on  Celtic  Lit 
erature,  one  of  his  most  charming 
books.  Whether  it  be  indeed  owing 
to  a  difference  of  race  instinct,  or  to 
the  close  contact  with  the  material 
world  induced  by  the  necessity  of 
combat  with  it,  the  northern  nations 
of  Europe  are  certainly  more  familiar 
with  that  world  than  those  of  the 
south. 

Familiarity  with  nature  takes  two 
forms,  one  exoteric,  the  other  eso 
teric:  either  nature  is  viewed  in 
detail,  as  an  object  of  endless  interest 
and  amusement,  or  she  is  deified 
with  a  passionate  and  religious  ado 
ration.  The  first  of  these  forms  is 
probably  more  general  in  the  United 


THE   AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.     l6/ 

States  than  it  has  ever  before  been 
anywhere.  No  other  people  read  as 
we  do  the  current  literature  of  the 
day,  newspapers,  magazines.  But 
that  literature  is  kept  full  of  scien 
tific  speculation  in  every  form.  It 
is  in  the  air  all  about  us.  We  imbibe 
the  chief  fact  of  evolution  from  our 
infancy,  and  look  upon  monkeys  with 
a  weird  interest  and  a  superstitious 
eye  for  ancestral  traits.  The  discus 
sion  of  these  matters  is  not  confined 
to  scholars  and  professors;  one  hears 
it  every  day  among  men  of  business, 
even  among  mechanics. 

We  are  a  nation  of  travellers.  We 
are  not  rooted  and  moss-grown,  like 
Europeans.  Moving  house  and  home 
is  the  excitement  of  life,  and  a  man 
who  dies  where  he  was  born  is  a  curi 
osity.  Men  and  women  work  hard 
all  their  lives,  and  at  sixty  set  out  to 


1 68       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

see  the  world.  They  go  to  California 
or  Mexico  or  Alaska  for  six  weeks, 
like  it,  and  make  a  journey  to  India. 
In  one  sense,  this  perpetual  locomo 
tion  cuts  us  off  from  nature.  It  inter 
feres  with  the  forming  of  associations. 
It  abolishes  the  peculiar  kinship  that 
knits  up  some  fact  of  the  past  with 
every  tree  and  stone,  making  old 
houses  seem  like  old  faces  well  be 
loved.  I  do  not  think  any  of  our 
people  have  the  attachment  which,  it 
is  said,  in  some  European  countries 
binds  the  peasant  to  the  soil;  nor 
indeed  have  we  a  peasantry,  in  the 
European  sense,  anywhere  within  our 
borders. 

Yet  if  our  acquaintance  with  nature 
is  not  intimate,  it  is  extensive.  In 
almost  every  company  you  will  find 
people  who  are  familiar  with  the 
swamps  of  Florida  and  the  prairies 


THE  AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.     169 

of  Kansas,  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
the  Yosemite  Valley.  It  is  important 
to  note  that  in  our  American  journey 
ing,  at  any  rate,  we  look  especially  at 
such  natural  objects  because  nothing 
else  is  new.  From  Boston  to  San 
Francisco  man  is  substantially  the 
same.  Variety  must  be  sought  in 
nature.  Curiosity  can  spend  itself 
no  longer  on  manners  and  customs. 
If  we  look  from  the  car  windows,  we 
have  no  eyes  for  the  eternal  John 
Smith;  he  stands  for  insignificance 
in  the  foreground  of  the  picture. 
The  feeling  thus  fostered  is,  indeed, 
often  shallow  and  idle.  These  uni 
versal  sight-seers  have  no  reverence, 
not  even  a  spirit  of  thoughtful  and 
sober  inquiry.  The  scenery  they  are 
whirled  through  becomes  a  panorama, 
a  theatrical  spectacle,  and  their  only 
impulse  is  a  longing  for  some  higher 


1 70       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

mountain,  or  broader  river,  or  wilder 
valley,  to  rouse  dull  eyes  once  more 
into  a  languid  enthusiasm.  They 
have  a  catalogue,  a  collection  of  ob 
jects  of  interest,  and  compare  notes: 
"Have  you  been  there?"  "Oh,  you 
ought  to  see  that !  "  Yet  an  effect  re 
mains.  Petty  prejudices  and  provin 
cial  notions  are  partially  obliterated. 
You  cannot  come  in  contact  with 
nature  even  in  this  superficial  way 
without  gaining  something  of  her 
largeness  and  her  calm.  There  is  a 
gain  of  sympathy,  also.  Perhaps  we 
are  not  naturally  a  sporting  people, 
like  our  English  cousins.  If  we  are 
so,  we  have  lost  the  taste  to  a  great 
degree,  and  acquired  a  dislike  for 
shooting,  even  for  fishing.  We  pre 
fer  to  live  and  let  live,  with  beast  as 
well  as  man.  A  simple  walk  is 
enough  for  us;  the  sight  of  birds  and 


THE  AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.     171 

animals  pleases  us  more  than  the 
destruction  of  them.  We  love  the 
open  air  for  itself,  and  are  contented 
with  it.  How  many  of  us  revel  in 
that  joyous  cry  of  Emerson,  "Give 
me  health  and  a  day,  and  I  will  make 
the  pomp  of  emperors  ridiculous  "  ! 

This  sweet,  fresh  renewal  that  comes 
from  contact  with  nature  is  felt  even 
by  people  who  have  little  imagination 
or  sensibility,  who  abhor  solitude,  and 
certainly  would  not  choose  the  country 
as  an  abiding-place.  In  summer  the 
whole  population  flock  to  the  moun 
tains  and  salt  water,  and  they  are  not 
quite  the  same  there  as  at  home.  Mr. 
Bradford  Torrey,  in  his  charming  A 
Rambler's  Lease,  says :  "  I  hope  I  am 
not  lacking  in  a  wholesome  disrespect 
for  sentimentality  and  affectation;  for 
artificial  ecstasies  over  sunsets  and 
landscapes,  birds  and  flowers;  the 


172       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

fashionable  cant  of  nature-worship, 
which  is  enough  almost  to  seal  a  true 
worshipper's  lips  under  a  vow  of  ever 
lasting  silence."  Certainly  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  such  cant,  and  the  canter 
is  only  too  apt  to  go  away  and  forget 
what  manner  of  man  he  was.  Yet 
even  the  lightest,  the  most  frivolous, 
the  most  hardened,  get  something 
from  these  things.  The  very  exist 
ence  of  the  fashion  shows  a  tendency. 
A  large  class  of  people  do,  how 
ever,  take  the  matter  more  seriously. 
The  scientific  views  I  have  referred  to 
above  give  the  study  of  nature  an 
interest  which  strikes  deeper  than  a 
mere  desultory  curiosity.  There  are 
many  men  and  women  who  have 
picked  up  a  smattering  of  botany  or 
ornithology  in  childhood,  and  find  it 
afterwards  a  never-failing  occupation, 
opening  new  vistas  and  revealing  deep 


THE   AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.     173 

secrets,  always  within  reach  and  always 
fascinating.  Careful  study  of  this 
kind  sometimes  breeds  a  contempt 
for  large  effects,  keeps  the  eyes  near 
earth  on  microscopic  beauty;  but 
how  close  it  brings  one  to  the  intri 
cate  mystery  of  life ! 

Science,  too,  has  the  great  advan 
tage  of  being  accessible  in  fragments, 
and  not  requiring  lifelong  familiarity 
for  the  appreciation  of  its  pleasures. 
It  is  different  from  literature,  which 
demands  a  patient  apprenticeship, 
and  is  not  open  to  the  first  comer. 
A  busy  man  can  see  a  great  deal  out 
of  doors  to  interest  him  at  odd  mo 
ments;  but  he  is  not  likely  to  make 
close  friends  of  Homer  and  Dante. 

I  have  not,  I  think,  exaggerated 
the  importance  of  what  external  nature 
has  done  and  is  doing  for  Americans; 
but  it  may  be  exaggerated  by  confus- 


174       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN    CHARACTER. 

ing  the  two  forms  of  familiarity  with 
natural  objects  that  I  have  noted 
above.  One  hears  a  good  deal  of  talk 
about  the  religion  of  nature,  about  a 
worship  which  will  put  aside  churches 
and  go  into  the  woods,  about  a  rever 
ence  which  will  associate  itself  more 
deeply  and  truly  with  trees  and  flowers 
and  stars  than  with  buildings  fash 
ioned  by  the  hand  of  man,  about  a 
devotion  bred  by  quiet  in  the  fields 
rather  than  by  liturgies  or  outgrown 
creeds  or  dim  cathedrals.  We  must 
distinguish  here.  At  the  opening  of 
this  century,  in  the  passionate  reac 
tion  against  the  social  and  religious 
conventions  of  the  last,  poets  and 
men  of  letters  were  strongly  moved  to 
substitute  for  certain  traditional  theo 
ries  of  religion  a  deeper,  ampler,  and 
vaguer  sentiment.  Beginning  with 
Rousseau,  this  tendency  spread  to 


THE  AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.     175 

many  men  of  a  quite  different  stamp. 
The  poets  of  England,  France,  and 
Germany  poured  forth  upon  natural 
objects  all  the  ecstasies  of  lovers. 
The  beauty  of  colour,  sound,  motion, 
filled  them,  mastered  them.  They 
lost  themselves  in  the  sway  of  great 
winds,  in  the  slow  majesty  of  midday 
clouds,  in  the  undulation  of  grass 
floating  in  the  summer  light.  Eng 
lish  poetry  will  show  us  this  better 
than  any  other.  Let  us  take  Cowper, 
still  timid,  still  Christian  in  the  sense 
that  made  Sainte-Beuve  say,  "The 
great  Pan  has  naught  to  do  with  the 
great  Crucified  One,"  yet  striking 
again  and  again  notes  passionate  as 
this :  — 

"  Lanes,  in  which  the  primrose  ere  her  time 
Peeps  through  the  moss  that  clothes  the  haw 
thorn  root, 
Deceive  no  student;" 


176       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

or  Keats  crying  to  the  Nightingale :  — 

"  Now  more  than  ever  seems  it  rich  to  die, 
To  cease  upon  the  midnight  with  no  pain, 
While  thou  art  pouring  forth  thy  soul  abroad 
In  such  an  ecstasy;" 

or  Wordsworth :  — 

"The  sounding  cataract 
Haunted  me  like  a  passion;" 

or  Byron :  — 

"  I  live  not  in  myself,         I  become 
Portion  of  that  around  me;   and  to  me 
High  mountains  are  a  feeling;" 

or,  above  all,  Shelley,  who  drank  more 
deeply  than  any  at  the  spring  of 

"  that  sustaining  love, 

Which,  through  the  web  of  being  blindly  wove 
By  man  and  beast  and  earth  and  air  and  sea, 
Burns  bright  or  dim,  as  each  are  mirrors  of 
The  fire  for  which  all  thirst." 


THE   AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.      177 

These  poets,  each  in  his  own  way, 
threw  themselves  into  nature.  They 
were  ready  to  say  with  Keats 's 
Uranus,  — 

"  My  voice  is  but  the  voice  of  winds  and  tides." 

This  feeling  was  to  them,  indeed,  a 
religion.  Yet  in  one  form  or  another 
they  all  looked  "  through  nature  to  the 
God  of  nature."  They  felt  everywhere 
the  presence  of  some  divine  mystery 
which  was  open  to  them  in  the  sweet 
language  of  the  natural  world.  Some 
kind  of  union  with  this  they  sought 
passionately;  and  the  imperfection  of 
what  they  were  able  to  attain  filled 
them  with  sadness,  with  the  delicate 
melancholy  which  is  an  important 
feature  of  their  work.  The  religion 
they  cherished  was  a  high  and  mysti 
cal  pantheism;  only  it  is  essential  to 
bear  in  mind  the  profound  saying  of 


178       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Goethe,  which  should  never  be  for 
gotten  when  pantheism  is  in  question : 
"Everything  Spinozistic  in  poetry 
becomes  in  philosophy  Machiavel- 
ism."  That  is  to  say,  the  contumely 
which  universally  attaches  to  panthe 
ism  soberly  maintained  as  an  intellec 
tual  theory  is  quite  out  of  place  in 
judging  poetry,  where  the  same  thing 
is  present  as  a  desire,  not  as  a  creed. 
Now,  this  element  of  passion,  of 
intense  religious  emotion,  does  not,  I 
think,  belong  to  our  American  love  of 
nature.  Even  in  England  there  has 
been  a  change  in  the  last  half-cen 
tury,  a  change  not  enough  insisted 
on.  The  difference  between  the 
poetry  of  Shakspere  and  that  of 
Dryden  is  not  greater  than  the  differ- 
*ence  between  the  poetry  of  Byron  and 
Shelley  and  that  of  Tennyson  and 
Browning.  With  the  former,  intense, 


THE   AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.     1/9 

absorbing  personal  feeling  is  every 
thing.  With  the  latter,  there  is  a 
complete  effacement  of  personality. 
Different  as  are  Tennyson  and  Brown 
ing  in  other  respects,  in  this  they  are 
alike;  and  though  it  would  be  a  mis 
take  to  say  that  passion  is  never  found 
without  the  intrusion  of  the  poet's 
own  personality,  the  lack  of  passion 
is  unquestionably  the  most  marked 
defect  of  both  these  great  poets. 
Certainly  it  is  the  defect  in  their 
rendering  of  nature.  With  Tenny 
son,  external  nature  becomes  a  mere 
means  of  elaborate  ornamentation; 
with  Browning,  it  is  generally  subor 
dinated  to  the  analysis  of  humanity: 
in  neither  poet  have  we  the  peculiar 
charm  of  the  generation  before. 

In  America,  have  we  ever  had  pas 
sion  in  any  branch  of  literature  or  art? 
It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  most  of 


l8o       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

our  great  writers  have  come  from  Puri 
tan  stock;  that  is,  from  just  that  por 
tion  of  the  English  race  which  had 
the  least  imagination,  the  least  sensi 
bility;  which  was  the  most  profoundly 
penetrated  with  the  moral  view  of 
things;  which  mistrusted  most  pro 
foundly  any  self-abandonment,  any 
compromise  with  the  devil.  A  hun 
dred  years  hence,  the  mixture  of  Ger 
man,  French,  Irish  blood  will  have 
changed  all  this.  The  change  is  going 
on;  but  up  to  this  time  Puritan 
rationalism  has  predominated  in  the 
view  of  nature  as  in  most  other  things. 
Take,  for  instance,  Thoreau.  No  one 
could  be  a  more  devoted  observer  of 
nature;  no  one  could  record  more 
carefully  her  subtlest  changes,  her 
moods  serene  or  stormy,  her  infinite 
variety.  His  knowledge  of  natural 
history  was,  I 


THE   AMERICAN   OUT   OF   DOORS.      l8l 

wider  and  more  accurate  than  that 
of  Shelley  or  Keats.  But  where  in 
Thoreau  do  you  find  touch  or  trace 
of  the  passion  we  have  seen  in  them, 
the  enthralling,  absorbing  worship  — 
call  it  pantheism,  or  what  you  will 
—  that  pants  and  burns  in  Keats' s 
Nightingale  or  Shelley's  West  Wind? 
Without  any  assumption  of  pessimism, 
it  may  be  said,  as  I  have  hinted 
above,  that  one  of  the  greatest  charms 
of  nature  in  these  poets  is  the  subtle 
and  inexplicable  melancholy  that  at 
tends  her;  the  vast  and  fleeting  storm 
of  intangible  suggestions  and  associa 
tions  that  wait  on  a  single  simple 
sound  or  odour,  and  vanish  before  we 
can  half  imagine  what  they  mean,  as 
when  Obermann  writes,  "The  jonquil 
or  the  jessamine  would  be  enough  to 
make  me  say  that  such  as  we  are  we 
might  sojourn  in  a  better  world." 


1 82       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Penetrated  with  feelings  like  these, 
one  comes  to  Thoreau  and  finds  him 
proclaiming,  "The  voice  of  nature  is 
always  encouraging." 

The  truth  is,  that  for  Thoreau,  as 
for  his  master,  Emerson,  Puritanical 
stoicism  has  set  up  a  barrier  that  cuts 
him  off  from  half  of  life.  His  creed 
is  not  a  conceited  or  presumptuous 
one,  — it  is  too  dignified;  but  it  sets 
the  man  on  a  pinnacle  of  self-satisfac 
tion,  which  inclines  him  rather  to 
identify  nature  with  himself  than  him 
self  with  nature.  One  hears  Thoreau 
constantly  saying,  "  Nature  is  delight 
ful,  delightful  tome,  Henry  Thoreau." 
He  patronizes  her.  Now,  this  is  in 
consistent  with  passion  of  any  kind. 
To  a  man  of  that  temperament  the 
study  of  nature  may  be  an  amusement, 
even  an  interesting,  absorbing  occupa 
tion;  a  religion  —  never!  This  is 


THE  AMERICAN  OUT  OF  DOORS.   183 

precisely  the  state  of  the  case,  not 
only  with  Thoreau,  but  with  most  of 
our  American  poets,  and  with  the 
greater  number  of  the  men  and 
women  who  are  to-day  engaged  in 
ransacking  the  fields  and  woods  for 
facts  of  natural  history. 

With  the  love  of  nature,  as  with  so 
many  other  things,  the  saying  is  pro 
foundly  true,  "Unto  every  one  that 
hath  shall  be  given."  We  get  back 
only  what  we  give.  As  a  humanizing 
influence,  as  teaching  patience,  toler 
ance,  sympathy,  the  scientific  appre 
ciation  of  the  natural  world,  the 
intimate  and  daily  contact  with  it 
cannot  be  overestimated.  But  to 
think  that  these  things  will  ever  re 
place  religion  or  poetry;  to  believe 
that  the  senses  of  the  average  man, 
though  backed  with  all  the  botanies 
and  ornithologies  ever  written,  will 


1 84       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN    CHARACTER. 

perceive  as  do  those  of  the  poet,  will 
create  for  themselves  the  energy  and 
intensity  of  feeling,  the  glow  of  imagi 
native  colour,  the  throng  of  associa 
tions,  which  he  can  call  forth  in  a 
moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye, 
is  to  be  profoundly  mistaken. 


THE  SCHOLAR. 

THE   true    scholar   is    something 
quite  different  from  the  man  of 
genius  or  the  mere  writer.     The  genius 
in  literature,  as  in  other  arts,  is  intent 
upon  fame,  — 

"  the  spur  that  the  clear  spirit  doth  raise.'f 

The  keen  goad  of  his  inspiration  urges 
him,  above  all  things,  to  create,  not 
to  acquire.  Whatever  he  takes  from 
others  is  simply  assimilated,  to  be  re 
produced  in  a  new  mould  and  metal 
of  his  own.  Some  geniuses  have, 
indeed,  been  scholars,  —  Dante,  Mil 
ton,  Leopardi,  Coleridge,  — but  by  an 
accident  almost  in  their  natures  rather 
than  as  a  result  of  their  creative  power. 
185 


1 86       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

The  writer,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
modern  man  of  letters,  is  generally 
anything  but  a  scholar.  The  mass  of 
matter  which  he  pours  out  upon  the 
world  in  the  shape  of  magazine  arti 
cles  and  essays  requires  a  certain 
breadth  of  information,  if  he  is  anx 
ious  to  pursue  his  calling  honestly. 
But  that  information  is  apt  to  be  hete 
rogeneous,  gathered  from  a  vast  num 
ber  of  books  on  different  subjects, 
reviewed  hastily,  and  cemented  to 
gether  by  a  school  knowledge  of 
standard  authors  now  and  then 
brushed  up  and  put  in  order.  In 
fact  the  specialist  is  so  cut  off  from 
the  general  public,  which  detests 
specialties,  that  a  man  cannot  be 
thoroughly  grounded  in  one  subject 
and  be  a  popular  writer  at  the  same 
time. 

But  the  true  scholar,  the  real  devo- 


THE   SCHOLAR.  187 

tee  of  learning,  hardly  cares  to  be  a 
popular  writer.  The  ephemeral  gleam 
of  fame  has  rarely  charm  enough  to 
lure  him  from  the  nook  where  he  has 
ensconced  himself  in  the  half-lighted 
caves  of  thought.  It  is  difficult  for 
him  to  conceal  his  indifference,  or 
even  contempt,  for  the  ignobile  vulgus 
and  the  easily  excited,  easily  diverted 
curiosity  of  the  magazine  world.  The 
goddess  he  serves  is  so  austere,  so 
thickly  draped  in  the  dim  robes  of 
mystery,  that  he  half  shudders  when 
one  more  venturesome  among  his 
colleagues  lifts  a  corner  of  the  veil 
and  exposes  a  secret  to  the  vulgar 
stare  of  the  uninitiated  and  unde 
serving. 

I  It  will  easily  be  seen  that  the  con 
ditions  of  American  life  are  not  over 
favourable  to  such  men  as  this.  Yet 
they  are  to  be  found  here  and  there, 


1 88       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

and  cannot  be  wholly  crushed  out. 
The  tradition  of  their  race  has  per 
sisted  unbroken  in  far  more  trying 
circumstances.  It  winds  down  in 
labyrinthine  obscurity  from  the  starlit 
plains  of  Chaldsea  and  the  first  astron 
omers;  it  passes  through  the  quiet 
groves  of  Academe;  it  lingers  among 
the  yellow  papyri  of  Alexandria;  it 
hides  its  head  in  the  Middle  Age 
among  gray  cloisters,  poring  over 
scattered  golden  relics  of  Greek  wis 
dom  instead  of  missal  or  vulgate;  it 
runs  riot  through  the  Renaissance, 
mingling  together  the  rites  of  Pallas, 
Bacchus,  and  Apollo;  it  walks  among 
us  to-day  in  men  we  half  honour,  half 
laugh  at, —  the  treatment  which  has 
fallen  to  the  scholar's  lot  since  there 
have  been  scholars  at  all.  How  little 
he  cares !  With  his  eye  turned  inward, 
"  coming  upon  many  ways  in  the  wan- 


THE   SCHOLAR.  189 

derings  of  careful  thought,"  how  little 
he  cares  for  the  ridicule  of  the  world 
or  its  respect ! 

There  is  one  scholar,  however,  who 
does  not  hide  his  head  in  the  nine 
teenth  century  —  quite  the  contrary; 
and  that  is  the  scientist.  In  some 
respects  he  may  be  considered  the 
typical  scholar  of  to-day,  and  some 
people  would  look  upon  him  as  the 
natural  result  of  evolution  from  the 
scholar  of  the  past.  At  any  rate,  he, 
too,  is  devoured  by  the  passion  for 
knowledge;  only  in  him  it  takes  form 
rather  in  the  study  of  nature,  and  man 
as  an  element  of  nature,  than  in  an 
investigation  of  matters  concerning 
the  human  intellect  alone.  This  very 
fact  of  the  clearness  and  sharp  defini 
tion  of  the  scientist's  object  takes 
something  away  from  the  mystery  of 
his  worship.  Nature  is  to  him  merely 


IQO       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

a  museum  out  of  order,  which  he  is  to 
arrange  and  classify,  and  so  often  he 
has  an  air  of  patronage,  as  if  it  were 
really  very  kind  of  him  to  do  it. 
Altogether,  men  of  science  are  too 
full  of  the  pulse  of  modern  life,  too 
active,  too  practical  to  stand  well  for 
one's  ideal  of  the  scholar.  And  yet 
to  succeed  they  must  have  many  of 
his  qualities :  his  patience,  his  enthu 
siasm,  his  infinite  self-sacrifice,  his 
readiness  for  martyrdom  even,  in  the 
cause  he  serves.  One  has  only  to 
read  the  life  of  Darwin  to  be  con 
vinced  of  this. 

The  scholarship  of  the  past,  how 
ever,  the  scholarship  which  to-day 
lingers  unknown  in  corners,  has  little 
to  do  with  science  or  the  external 
world.  It  has  an  old  and  worn-out 
prejudice  to  the  effect  that  "the  proper 
study  of  mankind  is  man,"  the  thoughts 


THE   SCHOLAR.  IQI 

of  man  and  the  products  of  his 
thought.  With  its  eye  turned  in 
ward  this  scholarship  passes  unheed 
ing  and  indifferent  by  the  loveliness 
of  nature  and  the  mysteries  of  her 
existence,  in  regard  to  which  it  is 
quite  content  with  a  priori  views.  It 
busies  itself  perhaps  with  metaphysics, 
culling  wisdom  in  Plato,  or  uprooting 
it  in  Aristotle  and  Hegel;  or  with 
mathematics,  that  highest  form  of  in 
tellectual  harmony,  covering  sheet 
after  sheet  with  endless  computation 
and  cabalistic  figures;  or  with  phi 
lology,  tracing  the  riotous  dance  of 
sounds  and  words  from  tongue  to 
tongue,  or  making  conjectural  emen 
dations  in  texts  that  have  been 
thumbed  and  worn  by  the  brains  of 
thousands  long  before.  But  in  all 
these  varying  forms  the  basis  is  the 
same,  an  all-absorbing  passion  for 


IQ2       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

the  pursuit  of  knowledge  on  the  serene 
heights  of  thought,  a  devout  abstrac 
tion  from  the  cares  and  interests  of 
active  human  life,  a  love  of  solitary 
contemplation,  which  in  the  intellec 
tual  world  can  only  be  compared  with 
the  rapture  of  the  Brahmin  in  the 
spiritual.  Who  can  understand  it  but 
the  adept,  the  joy  of  those  solitary 
midnight  hours,  when  drowsiness  has 
given  place  to  the  second  and  intenser 
wakefulness,  when  there  is  no  disturb 
ing  sound  but  the  ticking  of  the  clock, 
and  it  may  be  the  rumble  of  a  distant 
train,  when  it  seems  as  if  one  could 
really  make  books  into  living  per 
sons,  and  come,  oh,  so  much  nearer  to 
them  than  to  the  very  nearest  of  one's 
friends  who  really  live. 

This  abstraction  of  the  scholar's 
reacts  upon  his  life  everywhere,  as  is 
natural.  If  he  has  the  genuine  zeal 


THE   SCHOLAR.  193 

of  his  profession,  he  looks  upon  him 
self  as  a  priest  almost,  serving  a  high 
and  exacting  divinity,  elevated  by  that 
service  above  the  common  interests  of 
mankind.  This  lofty  office  of  the 
scholar  was  often  dwelt  on  by  Emerson. 
"The  name  of  the  scholar  is  taken  in 
vain,"  he  says.  "We  who  should  be 
the  channel  of  that  unweariable  Power 
which  never  sleeps,  should  give  our 
diligence  no  holidays.  Other  men  are 
planting  and  building,  baking  and 
tanning,  running  and  sailing,  heaving 
and  carrying,  each  that  he  may  peace 
fully  execute  the  first  function  by 
which  all  are  helped.  Shall  he  play, 
while  their  eyes  follow  him  from  far 
with  reverence,  attributing  to  him  the 
delving  in  great  fields  of  thought  and 
conversing  with  supernatural  allies." 
But  the  true  scholar  needs  no  exhor 
tation  to  the  performance  of  his  duty. 


194       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

It  is  a  passion  with  him.  Every  di 
version,  every  necessary  call  of  the 
human  relations  of  life,  is  a  hindrance, 
to  which  he  submits  with  vexation  and 
from  which  he  escapes  as  soon  as 
possible. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  scholar, 
if  he  has  his  health,  is  better  off  un 
married.  In  the  first  place,  he  cannot 
afford  to  be  rich.  The  cares  and 
annoyances  induced  by  money  are  to 
him  abominable  and  not  to  be  en 
dured.  If  he  accumulates  or  inherits 
wealth,  he  is  so  apt  to  become  that 
thing,  of  the  true  scholar  most  hated, 
—  a  dilettante.  There  may  have  been 
great  scholars  who  have  been  rich,  but 
they  are  rare.  Nay,  even  the  distrac 
tions  of  bread-winning  —  in  teaching, 
for  instance  —  interfere  less  with  these 
pursuits  than  the  alien  and  haunting 
anxieties  of  wealth. 


THE   SCHOLAR.  195 

But  marriage  to  the  poor  scholar  is 
but  another  name  for  misery.  Other 
men  do  their  business  during  the  day 
away  from  home,  and  at  night  it  is 
their  leisure  and  pleasure  to  withdraw 
into  the  quiet  sweetness  of  family  life. 
But  the  scholar  must  either  work  at 
home  among  the  thousand  disturb 
ances  that  make  consistent  appli 
cation  impossible;  or,  if  he  goes 
away  from  home,  half  of  his  energy  is 
taken  from  him.  He  is  in  a  strange 
place,  among  strange  faces,  using 
strange  books.  And  he  is  haunted  all 
the  time  by  the  privations  of  wife  and 
children  at  home. 

No,  the  heights  of  Parnassus  are 
cold  and  lonely.  The  intellect  is 
isolating.  It  is  tyrannical.  If  you 
give  it  anything,  you  must  give  it 
all:  heart  and  soul  and  strength.  It 
will  not  tolerate  half-service. 


196       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

And  then,  if  one  may  dare  to  whis 
per  it  in  these  days,  it  is  better  for 
the  scholar  not  to  marry,  because 
women  are  not  scholars  and  have  little 
or  no  sympathy  with  the  passion  for 
knowledge  pure  and  simple.  This 
does  not  apply  to  men  of  letters,  to 
whom  the  sympathy  of  women  in  one 
form  or  another  is  almost  indispen 
sable.  To  them  women  are  willing 
and  ready  to  give  it.  The  artistic 
side  of  human  nature,  the  passion  for 
beauty,  they  can  enter  into  largely. 
They  can  enter  into  the  passion  for 
fame,  longing  for  it  as  enthusiasts, 
not  on  their  own  account,  but  for 
those  they  love.  But  oh,  so  rarely,  not 
more  than  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime, 
does  one  see  a  woman  who  loves 
thought  and  study  for  themselves.  In 
Walter  Pater's  Sebastian  Van  Stork 
there  is  a  hint  of  this:  "His  mother 


THE   SCHOLAR.  197 

expostulated  with  him  on  the  matter, 
—  and  she  suggested  filial  duty. 
'Good  mother,'  he  answered,  ' there 
are  duties  toward  the  intellect  also, 
which  women  can  but  rarely  under 
stand." 

Nevertheless,  human  nature  must 
unbend;  even  the  scholar  must  have 
his  recreation  and  amusement,  but 
oftentimes  it  is  of  a  singular  nature. 
For  associates  he  loves  those  of  his 
own  kind,  of  his  own  specialty,  so 
that  he  may  share  with  them  little 
momentary  jottings,  may  carry  into 
his  diversion  the  preoccupations  of  his 
graver  hours,  may  season  the  passing 
jest  with  a  line  from  Horace  or  a  some 
what  broad  pun  from  Aristophanes. 
And  the  diversion  he  seeks  seems  at 
first  inconsistent  enough  with  his 
tastes.  It  must  be  as  external,  as 
^intellectual  as  possible.  He  loves 


198       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

to  ramble  through  the  streets  with  a 
congenial  '  spirit,  to  gaze  idly  into 
shop  windows  and  read  old  signs,  to 
criticise  women's  dress,  —  everything 
which  attracts  the  eye  and  soothes  the 
mind.  If  he  goes  to  the  theatre,  he 
does  not  want  Shakspere  or  Ibsen. 
Gilbert  and  Sullivan  suit  him  better, 
or  even  something  approaching  horse 
play.  With  women  it  is  the  same. 
Blue-stockings  and  school  teachers  he 
abhors.  He  wants  what  is  young, 
fresh,  full  of  animal  energy  and 
gayety,  jests,  mockery,  of  himself, 
even,  if  need  be.  When  he  comes  out 
of  his  solitude  he  wants  nothing  to 
remind  him  of  it,  nothing  external  at 
least,  only  an  occasional  reminiscence 
welling  up  from  his  own  thoughts. 
So,  in  a  manner,  the  scholar's  life 
is  one  apart,  separate  from  that  of 
other  men.  It  is  perhaps  more  so  in 


THE   SCHOLAR.  IQ9 

this  our  hurried  and  hurrying  Ameri 
can  world,  but  it  has  always  been  so. 
The  scholar  is  no  misanthrope;  but 
he  soon  becomes  aware  that  other  men 
regard  him  rather  with  respect  than 
affection,  and  he  schools  himself  to  it. 
They  have  no  interest  for  him  except 
as  affording  him  an  hour's  relaxation, 
like  some  painted,  lifeless  show,  which 
makes  no  impression  on  his  soul. 
From  the  very  beginning  he  feels  this. 
For  the  passion  for  knowledge,  for 
pure  acquisition,  is  born  in  him,  a 
passion  so  mighty  and  resistless  that 
it  overwhelms  all  barriers  and  acci 
dents  of  fortune  and  sweeps  him  on 
ward  in  its  course  whither  it  will. 
Nor  does  any  rebellious  instinct 
prompt  him  to  oppose  it.  There  is 
no  deity  so  imperious,  so  all-control 
ling.  But  her  force  comes  from  her 
charm.  Her  siren  seductiveness  has 


200       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

no  limit,  no  alloy.  It  enthralls  youth> 
it  bewitches  age.  Still,  still  she  calls, 
urging  the  wanderer  out  into  the  track 
less  sea  of  thought,  to  which  there  is 
no  bound,  from  which  there  is  no 
return. 

The  uninitiated,  the  profane,  can 
appreciate  results,  but  they  abhor  de 
tails.  They  would  gladly  discover  a 
new  manuscript  of  Aristotle,  or  a  law 
of  evolution;  but  they  recoil  from  the 
endless  accumulation  of  knowledge 
little  by  little,  the  patient  observation, 
the  infinite  pains.  To  the  scholar  the 
delight  is  in  the  means  as  much  as  in 
the  end.  A  happy  conjectural  read 
ing  or  the  discovery  of  a  new  micro 
scopic  insect  fills  him  with  as  much 
joy  as  any  conclusion  to  which  these 
things  may  lead.  It  is  the  constant, 
restless  application  of  mind  that  he 
seeks.  So  the  matter  worked  on  be 


THE   SCHOLAR.  2OI 

congenial,  he  cares  but  little  for  the 
result  achieved.  He  loves  the  atmos 
phere  he  works  in.  If  it  be  Greek 
texts,  he  is  unconsciously  penetrated 
with  the  spirit  of  his  author.  Homer 
and  Sophocles  become  to  him  neces 
sary  companions.  If  he  is  a  natural 
ist,  even  in  the  minutest  research  he 
is  in  contact  with  the  vast,  loving  per 
sonality  of  nature.  He  cannot  be 
without  her  or  away  from  her.  Shut 
up  in  cities  his  life  is  miserable. 

Yes,  it  is  a  religion,  this  worship  of 
knowledge,  —  perhaps  the  last  religion 
of  a  certain  class  of  minds,  who  have 
abandoned  definite  creeds  and  shut 
their  lives  up  in  the  sweetness  of  this 
one  worship,  which  most  of  all  takes 
them  out  of  themselves.  For  there  is 
a  sweetness  in  it,  an  intoxication. 
Old  Burton,  himself  a  typical  scholar, 
says  of  it :  "  Such  is  the  excellency  of 


202       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

these  studies  "  —  he  is  speaking  of 
mathematics  —  "that  all  those  orna 
ments  and  childish  bubbles  of  wealth 
are  not  worthy  to  be  compared  to 
them :  crede  mihi,  saith  one,  exstingui 
duke  erit  mathematicarum  studio;  I 
could  even  live  and  die  with  such 
meditations,  and  take  more  delight, 
true  content  of  mind  in  them,  than 
thou  hast  in  all  thy  wealth  and  sport, 
how  rich  soever  thou  art.  .  .  .  The 
like  pleasure  there  is  in  all  other 
studies,  to  such  as  are  truly  addicted 
to  them:  ea  suavitas  (one  holds)  ut, 
cum  quis  ea  degustaverif,  quasi  poculis 
Circeis  captus,  non  possit  umquam  ab 
us  divclli ;  the  like  sweetness,  which, 
as  Circe's  cup,  bewitcheth  a  student, 
he  cannot  leave  off,  as  well  may  wit 
ness  those  many  laborious  hours,  days 
and  nights  spent  in  the  voluminous 
treatises  written  by  them;  the  same 
content." 


THE   SCHOLAR.  10$ 

As  with  all  other  religions,  there  are 
some  devotees  of  this  also,  who  are 
ready  for  martyrdom,  the  martyrdom 
of  poverty,  of  hunger,  of  nakedness, 
of  scorn,  contempt,  and  contumely, 
the  martyrdom  of  sickness  and  a  lin 
gering  death,  which  attends,  alas,  too 
surely,  upon  the  neglect  of  the  mate 
rial  for  the  spiritual,  of  the  body  for 
the  mind.  Let  me  quote  once  more 
from  a  contemporary  of  Burton,  him 
self  also  a  robust  though  wayward 
scholar,  the  great  and  too  much  neg 
lected  Ben  Jonson:  "I  know  no  dis 
ease  of  the  soul  but  ignorance;  not 
of  the  arts  and  sciences,  but  of  itself; 
yet  relating  to  these  it  is  a  pernicious 
evil,  the  darkener  of  man's  life,  the 
disturber  of  his  reason,  and  common 
confounder  of  truth;  with  which  a 
man  goes  groping  in  the  dark  no 
otherwise  than  as  if  he  were  blind. 


204       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

Great  understandings  are  most  racked 
and  troubled  with  it;  nay,  sometimes 
they  will  rather  choose  to  die  than  not 
to  know  the  things  they  study  for." 
How  many  have  so  died  and  are  so 
dying,  tortured  by  the  fierce  and  un 
quenchable  desire  to  attain  truth,  so 
that  they  cannot  for  a  moment  rest  or 
linger  by  the  way,  but  still  press  un 
remittingly,  unflaggingly  onward,  till 
the  torch  that  has  been  burning  more 
and  more  brightly  is  extinguished  for 
ever  in  the  chill  dampness  of  the  grave. 
Yet  one  hears  people  say  that 
the  scholar  is  selfish !  Those  who 
bring  this  charge  are  as  often  as  not 
men  of  business,  politicians,  pushing 
and  active  in  practical  life,  men  whose 
whole  souls  are  absorbed  in  gratifying 
their  ambition  or  their  greed,  whose 
interests  do,  indeed,  bring  them  in 
contact  with  other  human  beings,  but 


THE   SCHOLAR  205 

who  do  not  hesitate  to  tread  those 
human  beings  under  their  feet  like 
ants,  if  their  ambition  or  their  greed 
demand  it.  If  it  be  selfish  to  follow 
with  entire  devotion  the  instincts  of 
one's  nature,  when  those  instincts  do 
not  trespass  on  the  rights  of  others, 
the  scholar  is  selfish.  Nor  can  it 
be  denied  that  he  pursues  his  studies 
much  more  for  his  own  gratification 
than  for  any  useful  consequences  they 
may  have  to  the  world  at  large.  At 
the  same  time,  they  do  have  such  con 
sequences  often,  and  when  they  do 
not,  there  is  an  indirect  influence 
shed  by  such  a  life  of  austere  thought 
and  occupation  with  the  things  of  the 
spirit,  which,  burning  like  a  quiet, 
pale  light,  pours  a  ray  of  pure  sweet 
ness  on  the  world.  The  scholar  is 
not  a  philanthropist.  He  generally 
cares  little  for  charities,  sometimes 


206       TYPES   OF  AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

not  very  much  for  churches;  but  the 
example  of  his  high  self-abandonment 
to  an  ideal  is  worth  the  stir  of  a  dozen 
busybodies  who  seek  to  exalt  them 
selves  by  the  show  of  benefiting 
others. 

The  scholar  is  not  selfish,  but  he  is 
self-absorbed.  And  here  we  begin  to 
lay  our  finger  on  his  weakness.  His 
whole  energy  and  vitality  is  given  to 
climbing  the  snowy  sides  of  this  high, 
cold  mount  of  knowledge,  and  when 
he  stands  on  the  summit  he  is  indeed 
isolated  and  alone.  The  loveliness, 
the  charm  of  human  companionship, 
have  faded  away  from  him.  The 
natural  affections  have  lost  their 
power.  The  heart-beat  of  passion  has 
ceased,  and  given  place  to  thought  at 
once  feverish  and  cold.  While  the 
fever  lasts  he  needs  nothing,  asks  for 
nothing  but  the  object  of  his  enthusi- 


THE   SCHOLAR.  207 

asm.  But  the  chill  comes,  and  there 
are  times  when  his  brain  is  ready  to 
burst  in  that  vacuum  of  silence  and 
the  grave.  This  has  always  been  the 
case  with  those  who  have  followed  a 
life  of  study;  but  it  is  even  more  the 
case  to-day  than  ever  before.  Up  to 
this  century,  or  the  last,  the  scholar's 
province  was  universal  knowledge. 
He  had  entered  a  fraternity  of  which 
all  the  members  were  bound  together 
by  the  common  service  and  could 
meet  on  a  common  ground.  Now 
the  scholar  must  choose  between  two 
courses :  either  he  attempts  all  knowl 
edge  and  becomes  a  superficial  dilet 
tante  ;  or  he  shuts  himself  up  in  one 
cavernous  specialty,  and  the  further 
he  wanders  in  it  the  more  he  is  ex 
cluded  from  cheerful  day  and  the 
community  of  men.  This  evil  is  a 
terrible  one  and  is  naturally  on  the 


208       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

increase.  On  the  one  hand,  all 
sciences  are  so  interdependent, 
"mutually  folded  in  each  others' 
orb,"  that  one  cannot  be  raised 
securely  save  on  the  firm  foundation 
of  all  the  others.  On  the  other  hand, 
who  can  be  a  master  even  of  the  rudi 
ments  of  all?  Thus  the  biologist 
argues  incorrectly  from  lack  of  knowl 
edge  of  metaphysics,  and  the  meta 
physician  errs  from  his  profound 
ignorance  of  biology  and  his  haughty 
contempt  for  it. 

It  is  these  cross  purposes  in  the 
world  which  at  times  do,  indeed, 
make  the  scholar  desperate.  In  his 
moments  of  zeal  and  hope  he  pushes 
on  without  looking  behind  him.  What 
does  he  care,  if  he  can  only  gain  one 
step  in  advance,  wrest  one  scrap  more 
from  the  close-locked  fingers  of  Truth? 
What  does  he  care  for  love  or  sym- 


THE   SCHOLAR.  2Op 

pathy,  if  he  can  perform  the  task  he 
has  set  before  him  and  satisfy  him 
self?  But  the  inevitable  pause  comes, 
with  its  gray  discouragement.  Of  what 
use  is  it?  How  little  way  can  the 
search-light  of  thought  dive  into  the 
impenetrable  gulf  of  the  unknown,  yet 
even  for  that  little  way  it  is  a  guide  so 
frail  and  so  infirm!  Why  follow  it? 
Why  leave  on  one  side  the  real  goods 
of  life  —  riches,  quiet,  ease,  love, 
friends,  content  —  only  to  wear  away 
one's  soul  in  the  pursuit  of  an  empty 
phantom,  unseizable,  intangible,  un 
profitable?  And  he  recalls  the  old, 
old  words  of  the  Preacher :  "  Of  mak 
ing  many  books  there  is  no  end ;  and 
much  study  is  a  weariness  of  the 
flesh." 

Yet,  after  all,  he  goes  on  his  way 
and  fulfils  his  destiny,  sometimes 
with  hope  again  and  confidence  in 


210       TYPES   OF   AMERICAN   CHARACTER. 

himself,  sometimes  indifferent,  some 
times  with  vast  scorn  for  the  futility 
of  knowledge  and  the  mockery  of  life. 
He  goes  on,  on  still,  utterly  unable  to 
resist  the  overmastering  intellect, 
which  always  craves  and  hungers  after 
more,  in  the  wild  desire  to  get  beyond 
the  limits  of  this  earthly  body,  to  en 
franchise,  to  depersonalize,  and  so  to 
eternalize  itself. 


THE  USE  OF  LIFE 


The  Right  Hon.  Sir  JOHN  LUBBOCK,  Bart., 
M.P.,  F.R.S.,  D.C.L.,  LL.D. 

Cloth,  gilt  top.    izrno.    $1.25. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I. 

CHAPTER  X. 

The  Great  Question. 

Patriotism. 

CHAPTER  II. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Tact. 

Citizenship. 

CHAPTER  III. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

On  Money  Matters. 

Social  Life. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Recreation. 

Industry. 

CHAPTER  V. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Health. 

Faith. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

CHAPTER  XV. 

National  Education. 

Hope. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Self  -education. 

Charity. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

On  Libraries. 

Character. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

On  Reading. 

On  Peace  and  Happiness. 

CHAPTER  XIX.      Religion. 

MACMILLAN  &   CO., 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 

I 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


THE  BEAUTIES  OF  NATURE 

AND 

THE  WONDERS  OF  THE  WORLD  WE  LIVE  IN. 

Cloth,  gilt  top.    i2mo.    $1.50. 


"  We  know  of  none  other  better  fitted  to  present '  the 
beauties  of  nature  and  the  wonders  of  the  world  we  live 
in,'  to  the  popular  understanding  and  appreciation  than 
Sir  John  Lubbock,  who  is  at  once  a  master  of  his  chosen 
topic  and  of  a  diction  unsurpassed  for  clearness  and 
simplicity  of  statement.  It  is  a  volume  which  the  read 
ing  public  will  recognize  and  hail  immediately  as  among 
the  most  delightfully  instructive  of  the  year's  produc 
tion  in  books.  There  is  matter  in  it  for  the  young  and 
mature  mind.  .  .  .  One  cannot  rise  from  the  perusal 
of  this  volume,  without  a  consciousness  of  a  mind  in 
vigorated  and  permanently  enriched  by  an  acquaintance 
with  it."  —  Oswego  Daily  Times. 

"It  is  a  charming  book.  .  .  .  Few  writers  succeed  in 
making  natural  history,  and  indeed  scientific  subjects, 
more  than  interesting.  In  the  hands  of  most  authors 
they  are  intolerably  dull  to  the  general  reader  and 
especially  to  children.  Sir  John  Lubbock  makes  his 
theme  as  entrancing  as  a  novel.  .  .  .  The  book  is 
magnificently  illustrated,  and  discusses  the  wonders  of 
the  animal,  mineral,  and  vegetable  kingdoms,  the  mar 
vels  of  earth,  sea,  and  the  vaulted  heavens.  In  the 
compass  of  its  pages  an  immense  amount  of  knowledge 
which  all  should  know  is  given  in  a  manner  that  will 
compel  the  child  who  commences  it  to  pursue  it  to  the 
end.  It  is  a  work  which  cannot  be  too  highly  recom 
mended  to  parents  who  have  at  heart  the  proper  educa 
tion  of  their  children."  —  The  Arena. 


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BY  THE  SAME   AUTHOR. 


ON   BRITISH   WILD   FLOWERS. 

With  Illustrations.     Cloth.     12010.     $1.25. 
"  All  lovers  of  Nature  must  feel  grateful  to  Sir  John 
Lubbock  for  his  learned   and   suggestive   little   book, 
which  cannot  fail  to  draw  attention  to  a  field  of  study 
so  new  and  fascinating."  — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

FLOWERS,  FRUITS,  AND  LEAVES. 

With  Illustrations.     Cloth.     i2mo.     $1.25. 

SCIENTIFIC    LECTURES. 

With  Illustrations.     Cloth.     8vo.     $2.50. 

CONTENTS:  On  Flowers  and  Insects.  —  On  Plants 
and  Insects.  —  On  the  Habits  of  Ants.  —  Introduction 
to  the  Study  of  Prehistoric  Archaeology,  etc. 

"  We  can  heartily  commend  this  volume,  as  a  whole, 
to  every  one  who  wishes  to  obtain  a  condensed  account 
of  its  subjects,  set  forth  in  the  most  simple,  easy,  and 
lively  manner."  —  Atheneeum. 

THE  ORIGIN    AND  METAMOR= 
PHOSES  OF   INSECTS. 

With  Illustrations.     Cloth.     i2mo.     $1.00. 

POLITICAL   AND   EDUCATIONAL 
ADDRESSES. 

Cloth.     8vo.     $2.50. 

"  Will  repay  the  careful  attention  of  readers  who 
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FIFTY   YEARS   OF  SCIENCE. 

Cloth.     i6mo.     75  cents. 


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3 


MACMILLAN'S 

MINIATURE    SERIES. 

Issued  Monthly. 
Price  25  cents.    Yearly  Subscription  $2.75. 

Messrs.  Macmillan  &  Co.  beg  to  announce  that  they 
will  issue  monthly,  in  paper  covers,  beginning  May, 
1895,  under  the  title  of 

"MACMILLAN'S  MINIATURE  SERIES" 

The  following  popular  and  interesting  works: 


I.  Shakespeare's  England.    By  WILLIAM 

WINTER May 

II.  The  Friendship  of  Nature .    By  MABEL 

OSGOOD  WRIGHT June 

III.  A   Trip   to    England.      By  GOLDWIN 

SMITH Aug. 

IV.  From  a  New  England  Hillside.    By 

WILLIAM  POTTS July 

V.  The  Pleasures  of  Life.    By  Sir  JOHN 

LUBBOCK Sept. 

VI.  Old  Shrines  and  Ivy.     By  WILLIAM 

WINTER Oct. 

VII.   The  Choice  of  Books.     By  FREDERIC 

HARRISON Nov. 

VIII.  Gray  Days   and  Gold.     By  WILLIAM 

WINTER Dec. 

IX.  The   Aims   of    Literary  Study.     By    1896 

HIRAM  CORSON,  LL.D Jan. 

X    The  Novel —What  It  Is.   By  F.MARION 

CRAWFORD Feb. 

XI.   Amiel'S  Journal.     Vol.  I.     Translated 

by  Mrs.  HUMPHRY  WARD    ....    Mar. 
XII.  Amiel'S  Journal.     Vol.    II.  Translated 

by  Mrs.  HUMPHRY  WARD     ....     Apr. 


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4 


